


Hide and Sequel

by tvsn



Series: H+S [2]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, 19th Century CE RPF, Napoleonic Era RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: AU-Modern, AU-Poltics, AU-Sport, Additional Warnings Apply, Brexit, Cimes and Coverups, Conspiracy, Diplomacy, Disability, Economics, Family, Football | Soccer, Gendered Pay Gap, Infidelity, Local Government, Loss of Virginity, Multi, Offshore Drilling, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Racism, Police Brutality, Press and Tabloids, Recreational Drug Use, Rejection, Religion, Revenge, Riots and Strikes, Social Media, Society and Scandal, Surrogacy, Take-Away, The London Season, Theft, War, goldfish, parenting, podcasts, race relations, secession, women's glossies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 115,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23155567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn/pseuds/tvsn
Summary: Three years after John André's alleged death, the subjects of his research are ready to take his former financial backers to court –- but what happens when he is revealed to have been living under a pseudonym, still in clandestine communication with one Benedict Arnold? What happens when events back in Europe reveal that André’s proposed methods have been put into widespread practice?This time, the fight for justice is taken up by the original offenders and taken to new fields as five powerful families exploit sport in the service of statecraft as institution and establishment are increasingly marginalised by self-serving partisanism and public apathy.(Or, the Napoleonic Wars as told through the medium of modern football.)
Relationships: Caleb Brewster/Benjamin Tallmadge, Edmund Hewlett/Anna Strong, John Graves Simcoe/Mary Woodhull, Josephine de Beauharnais Bonaparte/Napoleon I de France | Napoleon Bonaparte, Kitty Pakenham/Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: H+S [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664449
Comments: 22
Kudos: 9





	1. The Terror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reinette_de_la_Saintonge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A state prosecutor debates implication and implementation with a police bureaucrat in Paris. In Gibraltar, a young officer tries to regain his bearings after finding himself unprepared and perhaps unsuited for battle; a diplomat dismisses both aides and assignment, finding the theatre of it all as poorly staged as it is acted. In Washington, an administrative assistant grows suspicious of his boss. Far removed from the ordinary geographical centres of conflict, an inbound call-centre employee is struck with a crisis of conscious and a non-league football match is broken up by the national guard.
> 
> … and amid the drudgery of the modern news-cycle-standard, a high-profile murder-suicide catches everyone almost as off-guard as the autopsy to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we begin, if you are invested in Hide and Seek, as stated previously, you won’t be spoiled to its final two chapters in this opener. I’m just putting this up now as a sort of direct-continuation of the André and Rogers scenes from the update that posted this week on the off-chance that anyone can’t wait to see how that situation and the speculation therein plays out.
> 
> If, however, this is the first time we’ve met, there are loads of completely different sorts of disclaimers I should likely offer, so let’s crack on with it– 
> 
> (1.) You needn’t have read the original to understand this work; everything significant and lasting that happened in the 700k+ tome that was Hide and Seek will be explained again in due course. It would, however, probably help if you loosely keep up with world news because I’ve always felt that stories should make full use of their setting, and doing a modern AU simply so a handful of so-said “historical faves” can use a mobile makes for rather bland fiction. (2.) Being that this particular saga begins in fall 2018 and our collective conscious extends only back to the latest Twitter shitstorm involving a world leader, I’ll do my best to contextualize short-lived present-day conflicts here cited affecting the plot and major players in the end notes.
> 
> So … like yourself (most likely) I LOVE history and enjoy finding parallels to which a twenty-first-century mind can relate. (3.) It works out that I happen to find that sport is a near perfect analogy for maybe the entire Napoleonic Era. Don’t worry if footy isn’t exactly your thing, it is more of the frame than the picture -  
> Wait. I know, right? - What? Holup. You clicked this because of one of the relationship tags and right off the writer comes up with some rubbish about sport?
> 
> If you are still here, cherished reader, I should explain if not directly excuse …  
> When I started writing fanfiction, it had not yet occurred to me that there were genre-specific norms that other fans (of whatever) would be willing to go out of their way to enforce, and, while four years later I’m now fully convinced that I’ll never again in my life watch English-language television, I still just don’t … (4.) I still just _can’t_ bring myself to pretend that romance is the sole conflict or sort of relationship worth exploring. That is, of course, NOT to say that love, attraction and the then-inevitability of sex are altogether absent from my prose, such is part of the human experience, after all, just that I’m more of a crime-comedy kind of girl, I much more enjoy exploring political machinations and economic upheaval than I do, say opening a box of pralines with a pining love letter attached that would put every literary movement of the early to mid-19th century to shame. If you are into that (and why wouldn’t you be, you are browsing AO3 after all), there are literally millions of wonderful stories on this site alone that I would be more than happy to direct you to. Really. But this won’t be one of them. I’m pretty lame in that respect.
> 
> All the same, I invite you to pull up a chair at the bar and order yourself a shot and a chaser on my tab. We are ready for kick-off, and guys? I for one really can’t wait. ;)

Joseph Fouché had a natural talent for turning the inevitabilities of existence to his full advantage.

There was nothing particular about his slightly dishevelled appearance that would set him apart from the rest of the city’s workforce at this hour on an unseasonably warm November evening excepting that he had not been home for two mornings which he suspected would become three and, in this realisation, the stubble that had since sprouted began to itch. This caused him to absent-mindedly scratch at his chin as he waited; in turn causing the pace of several legal clerks to slow, some to shift direction entirely when they saw him in a pose which it took him a bit too long to realise connotated considered thought. In truth, his beady eyes, red and sunken from their near constant fixation on screens of various sizes since the autopsy’s findings had fallen to his desk were slanted only at the adjustment to the air in the hall, curiously far less dense than that of his office although circulated by the same system with its slight hum that even the most concentrated on minds could scarcely tune out.

He felt rather relaxed and all the better still in seeing that his relative lightness of mood did not translate to those who glanced him. He grew in the weariness and suspicion with which he was met increasingly certain that the man with whom he was planning to engage over a matter (that he had every expectation would be resolved quickly on its own merits) would himself meet his mien with the same barely concealed angst of his subordinates, ending their sordid affair that much sooner and thereby allowing the minister of police to return to those matters which ought to be commanding the full of his time –

The autopsy that told as much as it was said to conceal.

The fact that he was in as much need of a disposable razor as he was a double espresso.

And the question of what to feed the latest little addition to his family when he had time to do so, having only the vaguest of notions that such was packaged in a plastic dispenser resembling every other on the spice rack he and his wife had received as a wedding present but hardly used since the heyday of post-college enthusiasm for food blogs that they had then mistaken as ‘adult life’ had given way to ordering dinner from an app while still at the office and hoping against hope that it would still seem appetising after a few hour’s in the doorman’s mini-refrigerator and a few spins and splatters in the microwave when they finally returned home well after intention. He wondered if the contents of any of those dispensers would suffice, if the crumbs from the baguette he’d hastily thrown the thing in the meantime had done it more harm than good.

Fouché felt himself growing impatient with his own inclinations of humanity, pulled out his phone to once again make certain that the man who would never go so far to accuse him of basic sentimentalities had read his text, and, fully certain that he was being avoided, again lifted his hand to his day-beard, assuming the pose of the ‘plotter’ he saw ascribed in the shifting posture of those who were somehow caught off-guard by his presence in this particular wing.

Ridiculous.

He was here often enough.

But then, he considered, perhaps his courtly counterpart had failed to make a declaration to staff of the language he had used to file the docket. This, admittedly, would have been wise on part of the prosecutor as he could not possibly expect the hint towards leniency to amount to anything beyond another round of provocation which he could not hope to extract anything from.

Fouché felt his thin, chapped lips raise slightly when he spotted his target emerging from a conference room alongside too few to have warranted the space itself. He did not bother himself wondering at what had been discussed, he would know by the time he returned to his desk at the other end of the long hall and by the looks he received he could tell that everyone else did as well. “Ministère Public,” he greeted from the gallery, watching the smaller man’s eyes widen and rise with an expectation he could not place, suffice to say that his person had somehow disappointed it.

“Directeur Général,” Maximillian Robespierre responded in his usual monotone, his pace quickening as though he somehow thought himself capable of out-running the realisation of a conversation he had likely already had countless times in the confines of his mind since submitting his plan for a lesser charge than that which the police minister had himself recommended to the court. Their shoulders met as Robespierre passed though there was room enough to avoid the check and its slight in the space which they two occupied.

Fouché turned to meet his colleague in his fain, “A word,” he said strictly, moderating his tone as to indicate that the small aggression would not go unchallenged.

The state prosecutor, evidently having no words of his own to offer in apology or excuse, followed Fouché in silence for the twenty paces it took for them both to reach his office, quick to turn the death-march into a debate as soon as the door was closed.

“A jury will never convict Bouchard of treason and no judge in Paris is willing to put himself forward to preside over a trail with such stakes,” Robespierre seemed to defend and accuse at once.

As Fouché had anticipated, his colleague and sometimes-counterpart had been having this conversation in his head since the moment the idea of pursuing this course of newfound restraint had entered his active mind. It might be in his best interest to let the little man with his terribly outdated suit and ugly hairpiece that did not even have the decency to pretend to be otherwise have the full of his tantrum without comment. Fouché stated blankly at his guest and began drawing the kinds of conclusions that the Germans dubbed as ‘occupational illness’: It was as though Robespierre felt himself too young for his role and sought to compensate for this by adopting the fashion of many of his colleagues who had spent far too long in theirs despite himself having in short time gained more experience and far more success than most in his department would ever know. Did he lack for confidence? Was he attempting to inspire it? Was it in any way significant either way?

Fouché rather respected Robespierre when they worked in tandem, resented him otherwise and found himself creating various criminal profiles of the man’s private existence which - though he had the power to quite easily verify or disprove- he had the restraint not to bother, suspecting that such would rob him of what little amusement he could take from the lawyer’s peevish presence when he believed he could claim the moral high ground, which was often enough and certainly could be said to describe the present mood.

Fouché remained silent, sitting down at his desk without offering the young prosecutor the same minor comfort either in word or gesture, unwilling to engage him in his worries over a reality that could easily be altered when there were so many invariables with which he was meant to contend. His eyes fixed on the goldfish on his desk - as awkward and out of place in an old flower-vase that had long outlived its original purpose of housing one of the bouquets he had received at his latest promotion as it had been in the plastic bag in which he had purchased it from a street vendor – a practical gift for his school-aged children who had asked for a pet rather than sweets for their near-perfect school progress reports. A cat or dog would prove too much of a distraction for his boys and his wife had been of the mind when they had found time to discuss it that as Paris was already infested with rats there was no sense in bringing a rodent home in a plastic cage when its genial relatives were already living within their walls. He had bought the fish the day before on his lunch hour. He had not been home since, a reality he was beginning to resent the longer Robespierre spoke.

“In the past five years, there have been three acts of terror within twenty blocks of the building in which you stand making proclamations that deny the victims of the blood they are due,” Fouché interrupted without ceremony.

“No one is denying or disputing that,” Robespierre defended, “but we’ve never been in a position to try and convict such a crime and despite the blessing of having an assailant who hasn’t succumb to some want of religious martyrdom, the ‘terrorist attack’ your department accuses this of being simply isn’t - lacking as it does every other attribute of definition. I’m not going to be able to bring charges of treason against a French citizen whose actions didn’t ultimately end in the destruction of life, regardless of how many candles were alight in the following days and how we all wept watching our parliament break out in a spontaneous chorus of _La Marseillaise_. Disruption doesn’t carry the connotations you seem to think warrants a death sentence.”

“Two-thousand, four-hundred-eighty-seven French citizens killed, captured or injured as the direct result of Bouchard’s folly,” Fouché corrected, rubbing at his brow.

“None of them in Paris. He was doing what he saw as his duty, there was no crime -”

“It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake,” Fouché spat, “and one that cost our nation the means of making sure this conflict would be short and contained. The question you put before the court isn’t the severity of the initial reaction of Malian emigres in Paris to the unordered surge in Bamako, for there have been attempts at worse offences within the city walls since, ones I’ve been able to deter, mind, but the fact of the matter is Max, the police can’t stop every attack without current resources and I need you to stand before the nation and ask what position we want to be in when the next occurs.”

“So, this is about your budget, then?” Robespierre smugly accused.

“Much as it is about your re-election,” Fouché returned with a smile.

The prosecutor sighed and began to pace. “There was a fairly recent study with which I am certain you are acquainted giving that it never really made the rounds in the French press -” he started to lecture. They two had gone through various rounds of this dispute before. Ultimately, it amounted to Robespierre’s want to confuse cause for effect and thus adjust his methods based on misinterpretations that mirrored his politics enough for him to consider the data-set mathematic. The police minister felt physically ill considering all of the wider reaches of the partisanism otherwise educated societies mistook for numeric literacy.

“Harsher sentencing _wouldn’t_ equate to lowered crime rates in a society where one can pick up a semi-automatic rifle at the same grocer where they go to buy bread a milk, I shouldn’t think,” he erroneously consented, rolling his eyes.

“You are a model example of why ethics is a required programme in every university STEM curriculum,” the lawyer spat, taking the opposite chair across the desk as his own, refusing to look the minister of police in the eyes for fear that something in his visage would break under the strain of interrogation. Fouché could not help but wonder if his colleague was exceptionally perceptive or if the low voltage fluorescent lighting – the same used in interview chambers and detention cells though nowhere else on the premises excepting this office – simply had the psychophysical effect he’d desired in ordered their installation.

“Pity our collage system doesn’t put the same investment in discrete maths for non-specialists,” Fouché, who had in fact read mathematics as an undergraduate, retorted – though why this fact was so often offered as a slight against him he would never understand. “But insofar as we are wont to debate correlation and causation in the kind of colloquial language that lends itself to sound bites – your cited City on a Hill happens to share some aspect with our beloved city in a gutter, namely in respect to their budget – which, between you and I, eases any anxieties I might have otherwise been driven to over the prospects for my own. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to work out the maths on this one, but do try to follow along,” he scolded - noting Robespierre continuing in what now felt a deliberate refusal to make eye contact, “it is of some shared interest.

“Stop that,” he shifted, “you are making it uncomfortable and … remarkably self-conscious for a creature with a memory that spans all of three seconds.” For a moment they both watched the fish swim the length of its small world and back again in rapid repetition as though it were a suspect given to confessional idiosyncrasies whilst increasingly conscious of surveillance. In this thought, Fouché felt a twinge of familiarity with the creature as its behaviour reminded him of so many of the victories he had overseen over enemies of the state and rivals within it, a sentimentality he was quick to cover with plausibility of purpose when his current foe observed -

“I’m making _you_ nervous,” Robespierre surmised, absent of inflection. “Is this meant to be a metaphor?” he inquired, gesturing to the goldfish.

“It is meant to be a present for my kids. Do you think he looks like a ‘Louis’ or a ‘Phillippe’? I am beginning to consider that I owe him the benefit of a name.”

“I think he looks like a goldfish. Given that they only live for two, three weeks, I’d suggest you start with Charlemagne and work your way through history from there,” Robespierre suggested dryly. “That way you won’t suddenly find yourself at the end of the Fifth Republic without a natural ersatz for who so ever holds the Élysée when your children are old enough to barter their case for a ‘real pet’ in the conjunctive.”

“Helpful as that was, would you not be better served in this moment by attempting the same?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Robespierre shrugged, “Being in the right generally excuses one from conversations around compromise. But for the sake of wasting as much of your time as you’ve thus far robbed from my evening, we’ll say that the Americans in fact succeed in shutting down their government, which given the very inefficiencies leading this to be a tangible prospect won’t have the effect on the global economy you’ve indicated that you foresee: The dollar drops marginally for a matter of hours but presuming that geography remains fixed in your model, Frankfurt still wakes up and goes to work an hour ahead of London, cancelling out any residual benefit to the Pound thereby ushering in six more weeks of Brexit, which the press will surely blame on something of mere ‘assumed corollary relation’,” he snorted, expanding with a hint of sarcasm, “we’ll say Spain’s stance on Gibraltar or whichever current Minister of Some Further Ambition Merkel has managed to shuffle from Berlin to Brussels as though to say plainly that Germany’s constitution is at once tragedy and farce as history continues to repeat. But this is speculation, Congress might well come to an agreement to the self-same result for the rest of us – a null sum.”

“The only ‘null sum’ I see is the bank deposits of government workers for several weeks around the winter holidays. The Republicans and Democrats will never come to a compromise.”

“Their proposed policies are all but identical,” Robespierre frowned, “I can’t subscribe.”

Fouché adjusted. “Tell me, Max, do you follow football at all?”

The lines on the little lawyer’s brow deepened. “It depends, are we talking about the game itself or the money and reputation laundering defining its current practice? The latter occasionally winds up on my desk.”

“I suppose that depends,” the minister of police felt himself blink, “have you ever met an actual PSG supporter?” he inquired in earnest.

“No,” Robespierre gave after what seemed a moment of genuine reflection, “but I’ll see a tourist every now and again in one of those knock-off replica jerseys where Neymar is misspelt that they sell in the gift-shop at the Eiffel Tower for reasons I don’t pretend to fully comprehend.”

“Because such is the only plausible market within Paris for such a product – tourists from far-too-far-away to possibly know better?” Fouché suggested. “No, let me take this analogy to the provinces – have you ever seen a stadium tear itself apart for no discernible reason beyond the colours supporters of each side associate themselves with?” he asked, himself recalling a particularly blood exchange in Lyon in which he had been a combatant when still young enough to be particularly interested in and influenced by ideology. “Any two-party system operates under the same general concept – ‘you are acting out in the same fashion, but you are doing so under a different banner and therefore I’m justified in every means of escalation,’” he paraphrased.

“By way of which you mean to relate the US Congress to last weekend in Corsica,” Robespierre interjected, snorting back a laugh, “forgive me but I should doubt that divisions across the Atlantic, even being as marked as they are by partisan sympathies they are not literally resulting in -”

“In literal stabbings perhaps not, for why should they - as you inadvertently reminded me all Americans carry concealed firearms into public buildings,” Fouché frowned, reminded by the citation that he still had not received an internal report form the Gendarmerie a full week after the fact, aggravated further that he had set up a consulting meeting with a powerful, particularly connected sport agent (himself as annoying as the description implied) for the following weekend to discuss the residual legal and public safety implications of a game for all intents and purposes refereed by the national guard. Seeing as the incident may well have been instigated by France’s other police force, administrative oversight now fell to his office. Any other week, Fouché might have had some fun with it. Now he was bothered by the fact that he was even having to discuss the matter by proxy of his own metaphor.

The worst of it was, he considered, Robespierre was ignorant to all of the particulars and would likely continue to have his laugh along with the rest of the nation over the absurd (but statistically common to the region) given-name of the coach who would sooner or later be coming to Paris to issue his formal plea, depending, of course, on when the Gendarmerie decided to send over their fucking paperwork.

He sighed to himself, continuing with a slight as he set himself a reminder to make a threatening phone call to the lesser (and certainly less efficient) Directeur Général at precisely the hour when he knew the man would be removing his reading glasses and pulling up his bedcovers, intent on getting the rest he erroneously, self-righteously though himself deserving, “- but in reference to stalemates, then surely: it is the mob mentality, the ‘us versus them’ that absolves the individual of any thoughts of consequence. There are no immediate plans to rebuild Ajaccio’s single stadium, for why would there be? Everyone in the city seems to have been issued a lifetime ban for actions that in the moment seemed justified by the mere presence of the other -”

“I can’t reasonably argue that the American legislature has failed to perform its function under the last three executives,” Robespierre interrupted, “but I’m curious as to your defence as to why this might prove the final blow, that is - what am I missing in their failing to find any commonality at this particular juncture?” Robespierre asked, finally catching on just enough to be curious.

“The culture of whistleblowing systemic to the Trump White House,” Fouché smiled, laying out logically, “Max, there are thousands of underpaid entry- to midlevel government workers facing the threat of going weeks without pay in a city they are already struggling to afford. Even if nothing substantial transpires, even if shut-down threats are not acted upon, the psychological strain is real enough for those standing to be affected by sudden economic downturn that the commercial market is already suffering and it is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere in this web starts looking to supplement his or her income with something that I cannot believe my agents and I are in the singular possession of,” he fell into a whisper, “ _John André is still alive_.”

Robespierre’s eyes widened slightly. He leaned back in his stool, took a deep breath and nodded to himself slowly. “And to think I was holding out hope that you’d be demoted for your role in that fiasco,” he began, trying to conceal his excitement with insult, failing whatever expectations he had of his person entirely when he then broke into a grin in voicing the very thought that had likewise been Fouché’s first when he’d gotten the report form his overseas informer, “If what you say is _true_ than Tallmadge’s case will be dismissed in light of emerging evidence. Why wait on a whistle-blower?”

“Because the ambassador and I are in agreeance that France cannot afford a move that would liken her to Russia in terms of meddling with another nation’s internal affairs,” Fouché dismissed. “We can wait, we’re standing on higher ground than our rivals. Our nation succeeded in her stated goal of stabilising the world economy in a way that favoured the Euro over the US-Dollar or the British Pound during a trade negotiation occurring at the same time as then-Senator Arnold’s timely absence whilst the Anglicans were so up in their asses about the morals they themselves had borrowed from French philosophers and political theorists,” he paused, shifting, “as you yourself are often given to doing, but I’ve always found, my dear Ministère Public, the best weapon in such an offensive is maintain critical distance to one’s own ideology.”

“If only we were not all given to forgetting ourselves in the face of temptation,” the prosecutor commented, clearly still intent on saying whatever he had intended to since submitting charges that afternoon.

Fouché threw up his arms in frustration. “Oh, The Incorruptible Robespierre, here we go!” He had ought to have just let him finish his rant when he had first arrived. Now that they were -presumably- operating under a shared set of facts, this felt triter and time-consuming as it otherwise might have.

“You accuse Bouchard of treason with a mind of getting me to argue this to conviction for the defence of our nation with the assumption that somewhere in the circus of the information you seem to have enough reason to believe you share with a number of faceless Washington bureaucrats that it will be revealed that the _reason_ , I have to presume, for this coverup – for, rather, the absence of internet commentary from America’s ruling faction on Tallmadge’s case against the government - is that the research in which the doctor was involved has already been implemented on a far larger scale than a single Sunday-side football team,” he tried.

It was not entirely what Fouché had been expecting and he felt unnerved.

“You are not mistaken,” he gave.

“Now that that case won’t go to court and the public will never be made to recon with the negative side effects of conquering fear,” Robespierre continued to surmise, “André methods will easily be implemented in our own armed force and a goodly number of men more loyal to their general than the state won’t return from battle, and those who manage will behave in ways that justify whatever budgetary demands you then seek to make, what with a spike in violent incidences that you will be able to combat, but, conveniently, won’t be able to explain until the oversight or politics thereof change and you offer some plausible excuse moments before whomever seeks to dispose you makes their move. You are transparent, Fouché, and what is worse, you are woefully mistaken in the severity of your methods.

“I’m not practicing leniency as you suggest in bringing a lesser charge,” the prosecutor spat. “’Treason’, ‘terrorism’ would grab every world headline; ‘misuse of power’ is barely a conversation starter. Republics have been weary of popular generals since well before Julius Caesar and with reason I won’t see repeated under my watch – I’ll make sure of Bouchard’s fall, to be sure, but not at the risk of watching another potential dictator rise in his place, especially, my dear Directeur Général, not _you_. Most especially not you.”

Fouché shook his head. “Are you truly so convinced of your own propaganda? I’ll not have you sit in my office and pretend to me that your cowardice isn’t a reflection of your own ambitions towards higher office, but I will remind you, there have been three acts of terror within twenty blocks of this building and if you seek to reduce my ability to halt such acts in a feeble attempt to create some kind of buffer between yourself and the very convictions that made you a contender for public office in the first place because of your limited ability to interpret a data set absent of politics or perceived public mood, oh, I can promise - hell, I can _ensure_ that there will be another attack, and that it will occur when the press is otherwise preoccupied with some sound clip of you around softer sentencing and that your entire reputation will be buried in the rubble. Make the case as I have laid it out. Make them bleed or prepare to drown in your own and the innocence on which you have drawn through your proposed lack of action.”

“Are you honestly saying you would turn a blind eye to a true threat to public safety in hope of watching me fall?” Robespierre’s eyes widened.

Fouché’s narrowed. “I’m saying that our country has a chance to wash its hands of twenty-sixteen and at long last reap all of the benefits of its harvest. _You_ are saying that you are having second thoughts on some childish notion that practice and philosophy go hand in hand. I’m merely offering you a choice.”

“You’re sick.”

“No, Max,” Fouché shook his head slowly, “I’m positioned to survive your incompetence. Resubmit the charges, resign yourself from the case, or accept that the path you’ve played fourth will ultimately weaken the republic and live with that consequence. Up to you.”

* * *

The junior officer cringed when he heard the jingle this particular podcast used to signal its correspondence segment. The tune had something of a singular ability to make him want to not only tear out his wireless earbuds but his cochlea altogether for the five seconds it played - and though this was certainly still true of the melody itself and the untrained voice singing it on this particular this rainy Thursday evening - the lyrics, for what they were, carried within them reminded that were he to pull his mobile from his army jacket, he would find on its lock screen nothing except a notification that the podcast he had elected to listen to in lieu of conversation (or the possibility thereof) continued to play. That, and maybe tomorrow’s weather forecast.

He checked anyway has had become a quite recent habit, feeling both as profoundly relieved and disappointed as he had staring into the same void five minutes prior. He bit his bottom lip, lifted his eyes from the screen and looked around, finding again a split sense of accomplishment and seclusion when he realised that he had become familiar enough with his surroundings that he knew both where he was and how long it would take him to get to the kiosk with the open faced refrigerator where he had purchased the vacuum-packed sandwich and pack of crisps he’d found quite agreeable the night before.

He had been stationed at this outpost of the Iberian Peninsula for two weeks and had yet to dine with the other officers who closed rank around their table when he tried to approach. His men, likewise, ceased in their conversation when he entered the room or passed by an open door. He was not vain enough to assume he had been the topic, but he was conscious all the same that his company was not desired and, quite likely, never would be.

All the same, in his short life Arthur Wellesley had become somewhat adapt at keeping his own company. It never bothered him in the slightest, until suddenly (and always unexpectedly) it very much did. The night prior he had gone to bed with a periodical he read from time to time, finding something in the same article he had purchased this particular edition of FourFourTwo precisely that which he was least expecting –

\- the girl who had broken his heart hanging out with his friends. Friends from London. Friends that had never been hers. Or, friends that, at the very least, had been his first.

It was a betrayal in that it was not. He scolded himself for his own surprise. Kitty was pretty, popular and everything she did spoke to the assurances these constants of her existence had given her. It was only natural that she would have attended what was being made out in the press to have been the party of the century, standing with all the other girls he had loved before with a vicious smile that so plainly said ‘ _but it is me they love more_ ’ that he could nearly hear the sentiment spoken aloud in her chiming voice.

He did not remember reading the article itself though he knew he spent the better part of the next hour trying to force his eyes to focus on the text itself. He managed to capture the gist of what was being said without making much note of the black and blatant irony that he knew by the name of the columnist to be as omnipresent in these words as they were in every other article to trickle out of his pen. Arthur knew that in the moment and all that had transpired since that having a laugh over a loss he was again forced to perceive would have been for the best –

Would have been, at any rate, far better than that which he instead felt compelled to do, which was scroll his ex's Instagram, hoping to hear her always-genuine laughter though a smile faked after holding her mobile at arm’s length for fifty or so frames for the perfect shot, through the multitude of filters she used to make her seem altogether faceless in the similarities her posture feigned with that of every other girl he spent his lonely evenings staring at.

For a moment that may have otherwise been fleeting, Arthur Wellesley found himself again in the throes of young love and felt compelled to express his frustration at the rejection he had suffered in the most passive manner presently available to him – he liked the picture he was staring at. Then, he went and liked nearly a thousand others she had posted before putting the device aside with as much panic and anticipation as that which had kept him reaching for it ever since.

He had not seen or spoken to Kitty in over a year. Still, he felt enough of a connection to her that he reasoned she at the very least owed him a “WTF???” over any platform of her choosing, allowing him to answer with a witty response, one that would force her to admit, at least to herself, that she still pined for him, too. Arthur felt certain these clever words would come to him at any moment, same as he was sure that Kitty was readying herself to call or text.

Nothing.

He did not know if this was for better or for worse.

It could well be that she saw his name in her notifications and was having a laugh about it with the girls who may have once been her rivals, with the elegant and powerful people they knew and would certainly someday themselves become. Maybe she had so many alerts that his were in fact few by comparison. Maybe she did not know how badly he had wanted to hold her naked in his arms the night before. Maybe she did, and this was irrelevant to her.

Maybe it did not matter.

Maybe he did not, either.

>> _I’ve only one email this week_ ,<< one of the presenters on the podcast said when the jingle that had been the most recent source of his sudden consciousness announced.

>> _Rest went to the spam folder?_ << another suggested.

>> _Could well have done,_ << the first man agreed.

Arthur nodded as though they were addressing his current correspondence situation rather than their own.

>> _There were more emails truth be told, but this one was as good as it was long and it deserves to be read it out in full -_ <<

>> _No!_ <<

>> _Christ mate, not the Corsica one_.<<

>> _No way any of this is real!_ << the podcasters continued to banter with one another.

Arthur, again distracted from his own woes and perils, proceeded through town towards the kiosk he was becoming quite acquainted with as he had purchased his news-stuff and supper there multiple times since he had been re-stationed. He was becoming rather fond of this particular establishment with its single window pasted over with a series of faded flags and the calling card rates associated with whichever associated country code. It gave him a sense of comfort, evoking as it did the shop on the corner of his block back in London where at fifteen he had regularly purchased wine with an expired driving licence borrowed from his elder brother to be shared among his mates, many of them younger than him still. Although he had no intention of drinking alone, or rather, at all this evening given the sensitivity of the assignment he had volunteered for the following day, he spent a good while upon arriving studying the three bottles (one of which came rather in Tetrapack) the shop had in stock and could nearly taste the toasts he had raised to finished projects and survived exams back when he had assumed accomplishment would always come as easily.

>> _I did a google on it and found multiple results, full disclaimer, I know about five words in French and there is a relatively high chance that I instead stumbled upon a recipe or something equally as unrelated, but the numbers checked out – so thank you Lucien for bring this to our attention:_

_Hey Lads,_

_In reference to your recent discussion around former politicians who presently own football teams, I want to draw your attention to my home town of Ajaccio on Corsica where a side recently purchased by our “esteemed” former mayor Pasquale Pauli as an advertising vehicle for his campaign (one can’t say re-election in this case as he’s spent considerable time out of power and is now running on another ticket) played their first match in their equally-new colours this week to the tune of a combined thirteen bookings, eight direct send-offs, and over sixty arrests for aggravated assault, including that of three of Pauli’s players and the trainer from the visiting team, who is himself looking at serving additional time for an offence his mere presence on this bench – rather than one on the mainland – exposed._

>> _Napoleone Buonaparte_ << the reader continued, commenting >> _this is where it gets good -_ <<

Arthur snorted back a laugh, smiling in spite of himself long before he consciously realised what it was about this shop that made him feel that his concerns were ultimately so temporary. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to meet a stoutly man with a heavy jaw but altogether friendly face.

>> _This is where it starts sounding like fake news_ ,<< the shop owner said – except, he did not. Arthur pressed to pause and removed one of his earbuds, offering an awkward apology.

“Finding everything alright, son?”

“Fine, thanks,” he answered with a smile he intended to be reassuring. The man nodded at him slowly and seemed to be taking note of his surname as though he suspected him of surveying the wares he planned to later steal.

“Any relation to the MP?” he asked.

“My brother,” Arthur gave uncomfortably. After hearing a few nice things said about the Right, Honourable Richard Wellesley from the single Gibraltarian who seemed to be ignorant to the stain Arthur had recently afforded his name, he purchased a roast-beef sandwich, a small bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps, a bottle of water and (in complete contradiction to his instinct as a younger man when interacting with a clerk) the box-wine, which he felt was good form in the moment, uncertain of exactly how long he had been absent-mindedly looking at labels while holding back laughter over something far removed. The man gave him a map of the territory that he had on the counter after the transaction was completed, circling a few places of interest, and Arthur, his supper, the four podcasters who otherwise served to substitute conversation, Pasquale Pauli and Napoleone Buonaparte followed it for a few blocks to a spot where Arthur was promised that he could watch the sun setting over the sea.

Once outside, he pressed play again.

>> _I want this to be real – don’t take this from me!_ << the man tasked with reading out the correspondence insisted.

>> _Fine, go on with it then._ <<

>> _Napoleone Buonaparte, << _he began anew, clarifying with a context that no rationally minded listener needed, >> _presumably no relation to the one we defeated at Waterloo – and the name is something I was able to verify on the English version of PSG’s website, Auxonne, well, doesn’t have one._ <<

>> _A website?_ <<

>> _In English_ , _you tit_. _Ahm._ _Napoleone Buonaparte, who left the island at age nine for a trail at St Étienne was sold on to Paris Saint Germain at sixteen on a two-year contract that after one saw him out on loan to Auxonne where it seems it first began to occur to him that he was never going to make it as a professional footballer. Not getting the playing experience he was promised, Buonaparte instead made his badges, and after applying and failing to obtain an official coaching position at his loan-club, returned home after more than ten years abroad where he found instant success in the sixth division. The problem with this was, he was all the while receiving his base pay from Paris, having failed to notify anyone that he had ceased showing up for training even prior to this becoming logistically implausible for him._

>> _When Pauli purchased the club Buonaparte was officially/unofficially coaching, the two quickly came to blows over local politics and Buonaparte took his “talents” across the street, where, three weeks post their first meeting in which it was uniformly declaring that they hoped to never lay eyes on one another again – Pauli immediately told the referee that Buonaparte had no place training the opponents as he had obligations elsewhere. When this was ignored, he called in the National Guard, who prior to kick off likely would have hung up on him._

>> _Kick-off, however, came, and after an early goal on part of Pauli’s team was ruled off-side, a flare was thrown onto the pitch, causing the player to then toss it back at the away-supporters. When the referee tried to book him, he was hit in the face - <<_

>> _I know very, very little about Corsican politics but this fits the image I have._ << another presenter remarked.

“Irish, too,” Arthur mumbled to himself, wondering vaguely as the conversation continued if he had for field a five-a-side team with politicians who he would pick and for what role. As he ate and considered the merits (for what they were) of various MPs, weighing how (if at all) they might translate to athleticism, he continued listening to the disaster-comedy that was the Corsican Sunday-league until hearing a ping that returned him from whimsy. He pulled his phone from his pocket to find that the text message he had spent the past twenty-odd hours impatiently awaiting had finally popped up on his lock-screen.

>>Hey Atty, are you back in the UK by chance?<< Kitty Packenham had written. It was better than he could have hoped for.

>>In a matter of speaking.<< he answered.

>>I heard about what happened. How are you holding up?<<

Perhaps his hope had been premature.

>>Where are you? Any chance we can meet up at the weekend?<<

>>None. I’m in Gibraltar. Tomorrow I’m to accompany

a diplomatic mission to the Spanish Crown,<< he exaggerated

slightly. >>I’ve just been reassigned, that is all. No grounds to

worry yourself, love.<<

Five minutes passed under the strain of radio silence. _Love!_ he cursed - why the fuck did he go and say it like that? Arthur began composing and deleting a series of clarifications conceived with the intent of retaining what little cool he considered he might be able to muster in his defence, knowing that there was very little that could be said or salvaged here.

>>How was the party?<<

he decided on to his immediate and imminent regret upon realising that there was a goodly chance that Kitty had seen the work ‘typing’ next to his name since making a casual reference to that which he would have been better left concealing. Casual, and sexist, and demeaning, and above all terribly reminiscent of the class difference that existed between them, he scolded himself. As it happened, the last Arthur Wellesley had seen of Kitty Pakenham had been at a party on one of her family’s country estates, one he had decidedly not been invited to, one that he had tried to attend at the cost of his personal dignity. After being refused entry by one of her brothers, he had climbed to her window when he had seen a light on in the room, presuming it to indicate that she had retired for the evening. Instead she had been entertaining a number of young women whose respect he might have then realised she relied on – might have realised at least prior to making her feel compelled to come out into the cold and ask him with a practiced calm despite the tears pooling in the corner of her eyes to please leave. He might have refrained from making the situation worse in his response of smashing his school-issued instrument and delivering the kind of monologue that would have caused Goethe’s Werther to cringe. Kitty had asked him twice more to leave her be.

He should have.

He should have made a clean break with it.

He should have apologised.

He should have done anything – _anything_ – other than fill her notifications the night before with little hearts, expecting, even, some kind of response for this effort so removed from thought.

>>I always worry,<< she wrote back at the same time, typing quickly –

>>Do you mean Marie’s? That is actually what I had wanted to talk

to you about, something I overheard when I was in Edinburgh.<<

>>Should I call?<< he asked when he meant ‘may I?’.

>>No, don’t worry about it. It is something that we would need to

discuss in person. I’m sure it is nothing, and anyway, you have enough

politics to keep you busy at the moment it seems.<<

>>What happened?<<

>>Take care, Atty. And thanks for all the compliments you

extended last night. I truly do hope the military recognises what

they have in you, and that you are happy and fulfilled in your

new role within it. GN.<<

‘ _I miss you so much more than I now recognise I have any right to say,_ ’ he wrote without hitting send, knowing that he had already provided himself to be too much of an influence over her happiness to which he had no right. He clenched his jaw in hopes of supressing the urge to scream.

Thus far, he had nothing on his service record that caused him anything but shame.

For all that he excelled in theory, in tactics and logistics, his single experience under fire had confessed him for a coward and it was only a credit to Richard’s position in parliament that he had not been court martialled and dishonourably discharged. Instead, he was here in Gibraltar, on a rotating shift of guard duty with men who wanted nothing to do with him, reading papers and listening to podcasts concerning those parts of the world he pretended to himself that he belonged to when all he truly had was distant memories of buying wine from his corner kiosk for kids who lived in more fashionable postcodes.

>> _The most remarkable thing about this is that the kid got along with his scheme for so long without getting caught_ ,<< the podcast continued of Napoleone, though, Arthur considered, they could have just as easily been commenting on him.

>> _The most remarkable thing is that no one died, shit_.<<

Arthur felt his heart sink. In his example, people had and a not insignificant part of him wished he had likewise been made to answer for his actions. Unable to find the energy in his shame to carry on as though he had an appetite, he threw the soft bread from his sandwich to the gulls finished his water and thought to give the rest to the first beggar he saw on his way back to base with the decency not to mockingly salute him.

>> _Any of you catch that the guy’s name was basically Napoléon Bonaparte?_ <<

>> _Why did you -! We’re going to have to edit that out now – the writer requested that we refrain from saying his last name._ <<

>> _His “last name” … right Lucian, thanks for the update, never write in again, seriously, you’re never going to top this – but if any of our other listeners happen to have an anecdotes on politicians being as shitty at football management as we all are at Football Manger or whose local club happens to be coached by a Genghis Kahn, Julius Caesar, Saladin, Gustavus Adolphus, et cetera, do feel free to get in touch._ <<

* * *

“Seven down?” Abraham Woodhull asked from his desk in Arlington. He spent a fair few mornings in this manner, committing himself to a puzzle with a foreign diplomat, senior staff member, journalist or business interest. Technically, he was doing his job, which mostly entailed allowing no one empowered to do so to ask his boss to do his own. He glanced up from the paper to his monitor and saw that Benedict Arnold was still on his daily call to a nine-hundred-number, wondering what excuse he would today offer should the caller he was currently enabling the Secretary of Defence to avoid in the interest of his daily horoscope should again ask after him.

Luckily for Abe, there was very little chance of that concern materialising in any meaningful way.

“Mchitarjan,” Banastre Tarleton answered form somewhere across the world, clearly pleased with the extent of his knowledge of insignificant things and the vocabulary he had to show for it. Though he would never address the matter, Abe suspected that the Minister of Parliament had no real need of Arnold regardless of what committee he formally represented in dialling the Pentagon; it was far more likely that he merely wanted to show off, having found that the politics, governance and diplomacy in which he was otherwise occupationally forced to engage afforded so few opportunities to otherwise do so, especially when weighed against the filed honours and experiences that had won him his seat in Liverpool’s Fifth. Part of Abe wanted to confess on his bosses behalf, betrayal though it might be, that everything was far easier than his friend made it out to be – and the fact of the matter was he did truly consider Ban to be a friend, misplaced as they might have been together.

He had met the man over three years prior on what must have been the worst day of both of their lives and bonded with him over a bottle of Irish whiskey over the realities they were otherwise reluctant to confess to or converse over – being the unexceptional sons of men who cast huge shadows, co-parenting with women whose personal choices were potentially detrimental to their children, loving those whom their societies forbade unto them, and being mixed up by an accident of association in the crime of the century.

Things had not significantly altered for either of them since, at least not in ways that elapsed geography and job description. Abe’s father had since been nominated to the now firmly conservative US Supreme Court; Ban’s who had been dead for decades still so dominated local politics that he remained the measure against which he and his siblings judged themselves and each other. Abe’s ex-wife Mary was still in a relationship with a man he despised, a relationship which though-not-strictly-defined had managed to produce four daughters whom he found himself helping to raise; Ban’s life-long partner, ironically of the same Christian name, would be dead by the year’s end, electing to forgo further cancer treatment and thereby leaving the legal guardianship of the child Ban considered his own but bore no biological ties to in limbo. Abe had come out post-divorce and was now married at the expense of other relationships to the man Ban had encouraged him to flirt with when first they met, the one who had been pour their shots; Ban was unhappily married to a Hewlett-princess who had lost her title but not her sense of inborn-classicism in the union. And the crime to which they had both belonged continued, now without the benefit of a cover-up, as was apparent in the fact that they were both still tied to Benedict Arnold, who misappropriated taxes in hopes of discovering what the stars had preordained.

But at least he now never had to wait for the newspaper the next day to complete the crossword, Abe frowned to himself.

“What? You’re going to have to spell that,” he informed his playing-partner.

“M-C-H-I-”

“Are you sure?” Abe frowned as he wrote, finding that either he had something misspelt or the MP was mistaken.

“Have I ever led you astray?” Ban asked, laughing, “Don’t answer that. Google it though if you don’t believe me. Or I will. As it happens, I’ll be seeing the man play in a few hours, I should refresh my stats.”

“You back in London then?” Abe asked as though the question were altogether causal and of personal interest. Much as he did enjoy Tarleton’s conversation and company, his position required him to keep tabs on America’s allies when his boss would not. The frightening thing was that Defence Secretary Arnold was widely considered to be the most capable member of the present cabinet council. The frightening thing was, from discussions he had with other low-level administrative assistants at and after work, Abe was forced to consider that there was probably some truth to public perception.

“Gibraltar,” Ban corrected.

“Where is that?” Abe inquired.

“And here I thought your geography was improving.”

“I don’t need to know geography,” Abe mocked. “I work for the Department of Defence; it is enough knowing that there is nowhere in the world we can’t hit with a nuclear warhead. That I recognised Arsenal was a district in London is your influence. Well done.”

This gave the MP a measure of pause. “Have you really not been paying attention to the news?” he asked.

“An impossibility,” Abe answered in defeat, “All it has become is one side fact-checking the other’s rhetoric, which is difficult unto itself given that no two media sources accept the same definition of the reality we all live in but none of us seem to share.”

“That was beautiful,” Ban laughed, “You should put yourself fourth for poet laureate.”

“I’d lose my job,” Abe said. “Trump doesn’t like poetry as a rule and would see such as an internal betrayal. Arnold is happy to agree with whatsoever the Executive says in passing, as this increases his chances of swaying our Chief’s opinion whenever he decides to threaten an allied nation with ethnic genocide based on a Tweet he saw at three AM.”

“I cannot tell where the irony ends and apathy begins.”

“I’m not sure myself,” Abe admitted, looking again at the ticker on his monitor. Arnold had been on the line with his psychic for fifty-six minutes. He could hear him pacing in the adjacent room and suspected he would soon have to cancel all of the morning’s appointments. He needed a distraction. “So,” he announced, “I just googled it.”

“Mchitarjan?” Ban tried to clarify.

“Gibraltar,” Abe corrected, “according to Wikipedia, _‘a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. It has an area of 2.6 square miles and is bordered to the north by Spain. The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar at the foot of which is a densely populated town area, home to over 32,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.’”_

__

“Sounds about right,” Ban consented.

__

“So, what are you doing there with a soccer player?”

__

“Living your dream, lad!” the MP laughed.

__

“Spell his name again,” Abe smiled. “I want to check if he’d be worth leaving my husband for.”

__

“No, nothing half so glamourous. He - or rather the Armenian National Team as a whole - have had the misfortune of featuring as a backdrop to a number of regional land disputes over the past few decades. This is just another act in that play.”

__

“Is Armenia in the same region as Spain?” Abe challenged.

__

“As far as you know,” Ban chided.

__

“That is true then and I won’t say anything further to dispute it,” Abe laughed. “What they have you doing then?”

__

“What I want to speak to your boss about,” Ban shifted, “he isn’t off the other line yet?”

__

What a dumb question. What bliss ignorance must be. “Thirteen across,” Abe answered with a clue, “’doing something repeatedly and expecting a different result.’”

__

“Fuck you,” Ban snorted.

__

“State secret. Really. All I’m at privilege to disclose is that you should be damned thankful that you don’t pay taxes here.”

__

“Britain is just as deranged as the fact that I’m being made to go through the motions of this meeting.”

__

Abe nodded in commiseration. “Could have been an email?” he asked.

__

“Should not have even been a text or a tweet,” Ban scoffed at the suggestion.

__

“Ah, politics.”

__

“Yeah … politics. Do me a solid and schedule a telephone call between Arnold and I at his earliest convenience?”

__

Abe accessed his boss’ calendar on the desktop. “That would be … next Wednesday at nine, our time, provided the world doesn’t implode before then.”

__

“Well, one can hope,” Ban surrendered. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

__

“Any time, honey. Love you.”

__

“Love you more,” Abe answered as had become routine, the best that could have been made of a force of domestic habit finding repetition in the workplace. To that end, such sentiment was not exchanged enough to his mind, especially in platonic relationships but increasingly, Abe was finding, in romantic ones as well.

__

Such woes, however, would have to wait, likely for the following Wednesday when he suspected he would again need to offer himself as a distraction to the fact that Arnold had no use for or interest in his NATO allies. As soon as the routine of hanging up the phone was finished, Abe pressed the return button to continue listening in on the call his boss deemed was important, half-worried that Arnold was again getting advice on North Korea from someone who was likely earning below minimum wage –

__

The question of why this had not made its way to the press spoke to the underqualification of whomever his boss was consulting with.

__

The other voice sounded familiar. Abe wondered if this owed itself to the frequency with which he found himself the silent third party on the line, if the London-by-way-of-the-North-West accent was something he was only able to identify though his experience of screening other calls to the office, or if there was instead something more sinister to it all than simple, reliable government incompetence.

__

__

* * *

__

__

Religion had no place interfering with state affairs or the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfilment. The Constitution, however, which guaranteed this principle had not predicted the complex geopolitics to arise from the collapse of empire that its signing had begun.

__

In the centuries since Britain and France fell only for the Soviet Union to emerge swallowing all of the small post-colonial client states, eventually collapsing itself to leave warlords and religious leaders to fill the vacuum in places that felt far distant even still to the self-proclaimed Land of the Free.

__

America, all the same, was left to deal with the demands a budding caliphate on boarder with all of her Middle Eastern trade partners whose own offences against basic human rights they were happy to ignore insofar as the price of petrol remained stable.

__

Conflict and the ever-present prospect thereof aside, as a proud, red-blooded American, Benedict Arnold would have contented himself with the status quo that benefited his nation and perhaps would have felt himself a traitor to American and her values if he could identify enough to express any lingering regrets about the hypocrisy of foreign policy, but life, as it suddenly stood, did not allow him the luxury of wilful ignorance. He was readying himself for a cold war against an autocrat who had allegedly come to power by democratic means in these borderlands between the places his nation reasoned with and those whom she raped.

__

But this was different from the conflicts in which Arnold had previously engaged, first as a conscription following the Towers’ fall, then as an officer, then as a member of the senate and for the past two years as the Defence Sectary. Here, he was not thinking or acting in a manner or from a motive that one might describe as patriotic. Here, his concerns were far more personal –

__

His son Henry intended to propose marriage to the daughter of a woman whose name the Turkish Premier had had inserted onto the International Terrorist Watchlist.

__

This quite plainly was a ploy intended to force Arnold’s cooperation if not support in revoking the asylum of an imam critical to the Erdogan regime, a man presently residing Pennsylvania, a man to whom Arnold had offered sanctuary with a pen stroke when he had served the Commonwealth prior to the abduction, prior to the scandal, prior to all that had transpired that found him phoning a psychic hotline, for his friends were few.

__

Most callers, the call-centre star-reader John Anderson consoled himself, were happy to hear a standard horoscope.

__

Benedict Arnold - now, as always – sought in contrast a full therapy session, a think tank, and a distraction from the pain in his leg he sometimes worried would cost him his job should his boss discover the extent of the damage. Anderson could hear the floorboard creak beneath him as the Defence Secretary paced the length of his office each morning when the spoke. It pained Anderson as well and conversations were often interrupted to address Arnold’s projections of his physical agony onto the psyche of his superior.

__

John Anderson honestly wished for the sake of the nation he was now forced to call home that there were a more honest assessment in the danger to Arnold’s job being that he used tax payer money to call a psychic hotline from the Pentagon, to consult with the stars at $5.99/minute over military matters in an age where nuclear war was becoming an ever-increased risk, but none of this would presumably matter to the president whom he served, for Donald Trump more preoccupied with appearances – so long as Arnold still looked the part of a general, his position was secure.

__

And so, unfortunately, was Anderson’s own.

__

Despite profession, John Anderson did not believe in astrology in the slightest. Each morning when he saw Arnold’s number in the queue, however, he was forced to consider that there might well be an argument to be made for the existence of karma as an active force.

__

Anderson had begun working at the call centre three and a half years prior, shortly before the man he had once been had been pronounced dead.

__

In such time, he had become the hotline’s highest earner, which did not make any difference to his salary or his ability to negotiate for a raise – for daily calls of forty minutes or more to this number, specifically to his extension, meant that he could not option to move to the more lucrative sex line run out of the same building where he thought his talents would be better employed.

__

Then again, as Arnold’s voice alone reminded, perhaps he overestimated his appeal.

__

The two had a history, though Arnold seemed unaware.

__

In another life, in the one he had left for the sake of someone else’s will for him to live, John Anderson had been one of the leading research psychologists on a study aimed at weaponizing fear in high-stress situations for intended military application. The test group on which his methods were first used was ignorant to the study and when one of its members attempted suicide, the US Government threatened to pull funding.

__

Anderson, in a desperate attempt to win back the faith, support (and therefore purse) of one of his primary backers, had created a fake profile and begun communicating with the lonely Arnold under the guise of being the state governor’s youngest daughter, a woman Arnold had met only once, and only when she was a girl, manipulating him under another assumed name to his own bidding.

__

For a while, it seemed to work.

__

As things always did in catfishing schemes, however, it went too far between them and on the night when Anderson at last wanted to confess his identity, he fell himself into the same distraction he had offered his opposite. Arnold found himself in a barfight in the small tavern where he had spent the night waiting for the person whom he at the time thought would be Peggy Shippen to show. But Anderson appeared neither as Shippen nor André - the name under which he was then known, and as such Arnold found himself on the wrong side of a punch to disastrous effect.

__

Presumed dead, the then-senator had been hidden away in the cellar, the culprits intending to return when the bar had closed to dispose of the corpse. Arnold, however, came to and escaped in such time - not to safety but rather into a hostage scenario in which an aging construction worker who had lost his pension the housing bubble thought to profit from the high profile disappearance, at least, thought to extort from the family of he who was at the time being treated as the prime suspect.

__

John André had been ruined, which was nothing in retrospect to what the innocent had and continued to suffer for his ego.

__

The senator was eventually found by a tongueless housekeeper in the home of the respected psychologist whom Anderson had once been, an immigrant who had been a victim of brutal violence in eastern Anatolia when a neighbour accused her of speaking the Kurdish language decades before such was made legal. She had won the heart of a nurse who had recently won in the Green Card lottery, who married her after three days of her arriving at his station in the hope of securing her the better medical care he had mistakenly thought would be more readily available in a rich country. The woman had traded shifts with another housekeeper, recognising André’s name from a list of persons of interest in the case her daughter had taken over following the now-famous Tallmadge’s resignation from the force, herself ultimately becoming the victim of a bombing in which the chief investigative officer whom she had replaced had been the target. The tongueless Bihin Yilmaz had hardly expected to find the senator himself crying in pain in André’s bed in a penthouse flat that had been quartered off by police tape, but met with destiny she had forced him to fight for his own, and so, that evening Arnold’s youngest of three sons had met her middle of three daughters that same evening in the hospital. The pair now wished to marry. Despite the Yilmaz’ status as ‘immigrants’, ‘Muslims’, and with the emergence of a PKK charge ‘socialists’ working to the young couple’s disadvantage, Benedict Arnold quite liked the girl and her family and wanted to be in a position to give his blessing.

__

Of course, he would be in such a position were he willing to suggest asylum for the imam charged with an attempted coup be revoked, something to which the executive would surely agree for Fethullah Gulen was likewise an immigrant, a Muslim and a socialist – the trifecta of all that red blooded Americans, the Forgotten Man of Trump’s campaign and sole constituency deemed to be evil - but this was against international law and Arnold was a man of enough honour not to suggest it out of principle.

__

Capricorns were so stubborn, Anderson heard himself thing to his instant and imminent shame. “And how does that make you feel?” he heard himself ask instead. At this, Arnold laughed.

__

Sticking to the script Anderson knew that he instead should be following more closely than he was as present, Arnold countered this question with, “Comfortable, more so, anyway, when I have you on the line. There are times when I could swear that I knew you once in a past life.”

__

“It is possible,” Anderson gave. “I could do a tarot reading.”

__

“Would knowing one way or another help me say ‘no’ to my son?”

__

“Nothing in the heavens will made anything in this life seem any more fair,” Anderson answered. He spoke from experience. He spoke, specifically from the experience of having had some version of this conversation with the Defence Secretary, calling from the Pentagon of the taxpayers’ dime every morning of every day.

__

Part of him could not except that Arnold did not already actively know the realities of his suggestion, that he rang his extension as an act of revenge.

__

Part of him wanted to drop the pretence altogether and demand that Arnold quarrel with his real demons by calling them by name.

__

But John André was dead and needed to remain so. It was not Anderson’s relative liberty alone that rested in the balance.

__

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* * *

__

__

Kitty Pakenham had the sort of name that could afford her to be apolitical, but she lacked the strength of character to maintain altogether disengaged. He had spent an hour of the previous evening reading George Hanger’s column and a fair few more thereafter considering the implications of that which existed well outside of its scope, having eventually fallen asleep upon coming to this conclusion. Arthur Wellesley, too logical when faced with an obstacle to be particularly inventive in overcoming it, assumed in the void left to him by Kitty’s vague good night that she had likewise been trying to communicate her frustration with that which no one was saying; but where her intentions were presumably good, his were merely self-serving and none of his considerations were particularly helpful in finding closure.

__

They were, all of them, fated to the isolations imposed by countless factors over which they exerted very little influence and frustrated as such that adulthood had been a myth, or, worse, profoundly misinterpreted. Arthur had been more apt to believe in the prospect of tomorrow prior to profession necessitating him to set his alarm for four thirty in the morning, then assuming, as he now reasoned all children did, that time was linear, that each passing day would further remove him from the limitations imposed by experience. Instead of fading however, scratches had become scars and memories returned like drawn blood.

__

It seemed to him upon reflection that there was something terribly troubling in the fact that the party had been thrown in the first place. Not that he considered there to be anything wrong with celebrating the anniversary of one’s birth, except that was quite plainly not what had happened six weeks prior and he could not understand why the honoured guest had allowed herself to be so ignored at an event held in her name, unless she, too, had come to resign herself to that which she had lost every reserve to resist.

__

‘The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball’ as Hanger had mockingly referred to the event in his interview with the various personalities from politics and sport in attendance over what Brexit might hold for the transfer market, gave the grounds for the occasion little more than a courtesy-mention. In other contexts, Arthur had allowed himself the illusion that this owed itself to Tarleton’s want to protect his young ward from the same public scrutiny that swarmed the girl’s mother like a plague of locusts even now as she lay dying, but the reality of the ball in and of itself served to counter this argument as such would have required his consent.

__

Arthur had met Marie Robinson at school and related to her without having ever shared the world shaping connection of the kind that fiction aimed at pubescents (presumably written by older women as a reaction to the hormonal fluctuations associated with menopause) might have otherwise prepared one for. Theirs was not a teen love story, a coming-of-age adventure or a post-dystopian free-for-all, they just happened to be in the same place when the world had seemed a void. Implications, Arthur reasoned, were only invented after the fact out of an instinct to give life and its drudgery something of a narrative structure and therefore meaning and moral. She had been just some girl he knew until he was lying awake in bed, pinning for another, envying her recent proximity thereunto when suddenly he found himself forging a relationship from mere parallels that suddenly felt worthy of the weight on his chest.

__

To his mind or present mindset, it followed as such: following his father’s death, Arthur Wellesley had himself moved from Dublin to London where he was resented to the point of harassment - the result of religious prejudices his accent caused him to resemble in the ideas of his classmates. He was not Catholic, but it did not matter, and should not have even if he were, so Arthur resolved to rectify his situation by speaking as little as he could get away with, shunning those who had written him off outright for reasons of bigotry.

__

Marie Robinson, meanwhile, had rejection in her very blood and the world never missed an opportunity to remind her that she was the bastard of one of Britain’s fallen heroes, a former England captain who from the moment he learned her mother was pregnant declined to have anything to do with either of them. Marie however refused this concept of relation on its face and had sought out her own sense and semblance of family, forcing a crippled war veteran her mother kept around as a cruel muse to accept her as his daughter with all of the concessions this connection imposed on his own illegitimates.

__

Years before, in what memory reduced to moments after they two had transitioned from faces in the crowd to the small gestures of acknowledgement that kept society more of less civil, Marie’s almost-father Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton was erroneously reported dead and the structure she had built around herself collapsed like the walls of a besieged city and concessions by which she could not abide were suddenly expected of her. Had it not been in this context that Arthur had first been in a close enough vicinity that they two had cause to speak, he doubted he would have been the one to find her when she soon thereafter went missing and the rest of the country could not. They could not have spent more than an hour in one another’s exclusive company yet he had been able to identify her target, destination, the possible routes she might take to realise it and the lies she might tell to help her arrive, if only because he saw these things as internalised rather than implausible as the people closest to her were given to. He knew what it was like to be alone, to be reminded by the very atmosphere of one’s own relative isolation should it ever slip from active thought.

__

At the time, Edmund Hewlett, heir presumptive to the Dutchy of Richmond and the extent of the title’s associated holdings was reading to marry an American barmaid with whom Britain had become obsessed overnight, copying her ‘fashion’ (for what it was) to the peril of their own appearances, their natural tastes and tendencies. Marie had been particularly affected by the sudden trend, not in that she subscribed to it or had in any way afforded Anna Strong more courtesy than the yellow press later would after the public had ceased in its wont to share in a honeymoon (that never itself transpired) but rather because the sudden demand for Chelsea FC jerseys insured that she was bombarded with colours and symbols highly associated with her birth father far before the club claimed Lady Anna as a fan, which had the effect of reinforcing the loss of Marie’s ‘real dad’ more than she could evidently bear. Arthur’s life to that point was consumed by concepts close enough that he could easily relate to a situation that had nothing to do with him and in which he had no business interfering, and so, while the rest of the country was looking Maire Robinson, he (in a needless nod to irony, whilst sitting in an ‘Irish’ pub on the other side of the world) began looking for a particular Anna Strong among countless other copies, and, within hours, he had her.

__

Now, it seemed, the real Lady Anna, whom Marie had loathed long before ever meeting, was using her as a prop in her call for succession, transplanting purely American concepts of independence onto a conflict that had nothing to do with the high-minded principles her countrymen were raised reciting in a pome to their flag each morning, as they all seemed to regardless where in the world they found themselves and under what circumstances.

__

It made him feel ill considering the implication on its face.

__

He reasoned in a flicker of particular hindsight that romanticises the past by making it seem more distant and present at once that he had both envied and aspired to Marie’s refusal to read for the role others had written her. She decided what defined her, and if these choices conflicted anyone else’s characterisation she did not cave to this context.

__

But now?

__

Now, he, at least, was here. And not there. And not ‘over there’ dying under a hot and splendid dessert sun. Then, maybe he had died that day or somewhere along the way. Maybe Marie had, too, and Kitty would be soon to follow. Maybe that was all that was meant with the words ‘responsible adult’.

__

He could have gone to the party; in hindsight he should have but he had failed to identify that which the girl whom he had loved so well he had asked to marry not so long ago had evidently read in the invitation. Kitty had not stolen his London friends, she had been one to Marie when he himself had refused, whatever the rationale.

__

It would have been politically disastrous for his family if charged alongside his recent failed offensive, but that should not have served as an excuse and the fact that it had made Arthur all the more conscious of his own cowardice. The conflict was such that only a member of the Royal Family was permitted to celebrate a birthday at one of the official residences, though these were often rented out for other events. The venue had been selected as a provocation, a political statement of secession-minded Scots, and this at the mockery and expense of a friend. Marie Robinson was a particularly controversial guest of honour; her legal guardian was technically married to a Hewlett, but the union was rumoured to be unhappy as he presently lived with his gravely ill ex, Marie’s mother Mary, who herself remained legally married to another man, a partnership that had disintegrated when she had seventeen years prior announced a pregnancy with a child the man had no reason to believe was his. It was worse than being common born, in the eyes of many it was a crime that she had been born at all and Marie was being made to suffer the consequences of public judgement for a series of decisions she had not herself arrived at -

__

By declining the invitation, Arthur had rejected her to the same extent he could criticise others of doing.

__

He hated that, in the photos at least, she seemed to accept this all on its face as though there was nothing left to fight for.

__

Once, she had called him a friend.

__

Privately, he considered her one as well and questioned why he could never bloody act on these impulses.

__

He should have called or at least sent a text on her actual birthday, at the very least.

__

He would have upon the shameful midnight realisation that he might in fact be every bit as mistrustful and condescending as his subordinates and superiors accused, but for the facts that he had volunteered to stand as a member of Tarleton’s guard the next morning.

__

As Arthur evaluated it, ‘Sir’ Banastre Tarleton would be engaged in talks that far exceeded his skill set and he did not want to risk saying anything to Marie that would cause he to mention him to her adoptive father, thereby distracting him from a task that at his best he was not fit to carry out. Arthur, who had a (however limited) history of being compelled by a truly juvenile impulse to get under the man’s skin (often at the peril of those he had no cause to hurt or challenge) worried that even the loosest suggestion of these behavioural patterns would limit his ability to delicately intervene should the esteemed MP’s conduct mirror anything of what he brought to Westminster.

__

Ultimately, he saw the following morning that he should swallowed the full of his pride and arrogance and sent a text. That he and Tarleton were bound to come to blows was inevitable.

__

__

__

Upon seeing him again for the first time in years Arthur was instantly returned to the same mindset of seeking the confrontation and chastisement that constantly echoed in his own inner voice fashioned in a way he could contend.

__

He was, of late, proving his own worst enemy. He feared becoming everyone else’s as well.

__

“Wellesley, with me,” the MP said as though it were an afterthought. He had been delayed the convoy by fifteen minutes, engaged in a telephone conversation with the Pentagon while standing on the pavement, the kind that that involved rancorous laughter, sexual inuendo and overlooked glances at his own guard as though he were personally issuing a challenge to each man to shoot. The man standing to Arthur’s side grumbled and he responded with an uncommitted shrug. Why men like Tarleton were so beloved among the rank and file would ever fail his comprehension.

__

Still, he was glad for the invitation. He wanted to be undone.

__

Sir Banastre Tarleton seemed to Arthur Wellesley a lout who done exceptionally well for himself through the exploitation of personal character traits most would strive to conceal if they could not be overcome. He was a gambler and a cheat who did not see or care for consequence in so far as he was winning, conducting himself as though he did not grasp that human resources were not infinite in themselves, that his empty conquests came at other’s peril. He served in parliament not as a member of a body but rather as a representative of his particular constituency, happy to weaken institution insofar as Liverpool could benefit from the instability he had helped create.

__

Certainly, the House of Commons had other such mis-seated ministers, but none of them enjoyed an exculpatory privilege of dictating directly within their respective districts as the Tarletons, who simultaneously to Sir Banastre’s seat held every significant office in local government either directly or through a complex system of financial incentives and dependencies one might rightly call ‘bribes’, therefore permitting them absolutist authority under a democratic façade. The worst of it was, they were invested enough in this illusion that to the last they seemed to believe in it. Marie’s birthday was likely celebrated in the same vain, which was gross but not contrary to charter for anyone present beside her personally.

__

Still, for all of his personal and professional shortcomings, Tarleton was not a coward like himself and had a service record to show it.

__

Arthur wanted -nay, he told himself, _needed_ \- to get at him now that the opportunity had opened as he had half-suspected and, if he were to be fully honest, even hoped it might.

__

Tarleton was at last affording the him the curtesy of acknowledging - in tone at least - that he hated him every bit as much as the young officer had since come to hate himself.

__

Arthur slumped into the back seat, facing the retired colonel who continued to greet him with a very undignified, “O’rite?”

__

“Smashing,” Arthur answered in a tone mirroring the irony imposed by the question mark ordained by the dialectical utterance of a standard greeting a full stop would suffice anywhere but Merseyside.

__

“I presume you are owed an explanation as to why I requested your company,” Tarleton began, shifting from casual to stoic, maintain his distance in a way that Arthur now interpreted as disappointment rather than indifference.

__

“No,” he swallowed, wishing to instead be written off, “I rather thought that I owe you one as to why I am here and not -”

__

“It isn’t my place to judge,” Tarleton interrupted, raising his single hand for Arthur to stop. “I was not there and those who might have been in that position abdicated the responsibility in electing not to have your court martialled.”

__

“Exactly,” Arthur said, feeling himself choke on the shame and guilt left to him by his first tour.

__

“We, the British tax-payers, have already invested far too much into you to hold you at fault for your better judgement,” Tarleton continued, clearly familiar with the specifics. “You were ordered to fire upon a civilian mob, you didn’t – you assessed the situation and moved yourself and your troops to safety. You saved the lives of most of those looking to you for guidance and avoided the further escalation of a situation that nothing in the academy, in bootcamp or in basic training can possibly prepare you for by electing to spare the lives of those otherwise victim to the crossfire of centuries of poor diplomacy and oppressive domestic policy which you and your men through fault of nothing but your uniform personified in the moment. No one can fault you for that.”

__

Arthur shook his head. “Like you said … _you were not there_.”

__

“No, Wellesley, relatively speaking, we have _all_ been there: You made a decision and have to now find a way of living with it. When I was in active service, I made similar choices to my imminent regret, by the same token I ended lives that could have been spared which I rue even more than I ever could reluctance. You would be hard pressed to find any senior officer who would not say the same if asked to look back over the course of their career.” For once, Arthur noted, Tarleton was not smiling.

__

“How long does it take? To return to a sense of … ‘how this was all supposed to turn out’, I mean.”

__

The MP thought on it for a moment. “Depends. The military as an institution can hardly be said to pause. The whispers the blokes you share a bunker with, the ones that stop abruptly and turn told cold stares whenever you pass by will lighten up within the month, sooner, perhaps, if you manage to distinguish yourself earlier in some fashion, beer helps when there is little opportunity for battlefield glory … even when there is.”

__

“How do you -” Arthur frowned, wondering at the extent of his service record and whom, precisely, had contributed to it.

__

Tarleton squinted, “We’ve … met before, you and I,” he answered slowly.

__

“I suppose that is fair.”

__

Tarleton shook his head. “It _does_ get better. You’ll personally spend half your life with what-ifs and if-onlys and at some point, the specifics will become obscure and the doubts embodied by them will feel less pressing. You are an incredibly conscious individual which - oppressive as such must feel,” he frowned, “will take you further than you’d yet ever confess to even dreaming. You are a good officer, Wellesley, but you are still a young man, which is why I want to make clear that the orders I’m prepared to give you and the others upon reaching our destination have nothing to do with what happened on the subcontinent, with my respect for you as a solider or with anything in our sordid personal history. It is just … semantics. Something else I suppose you’ll have to one day reckon with yourself.”

__

“What do you mean? ‘Semantics’ … what am I to do?”

__

“Nothing. Exactly nothing. I cannot appear at the summit with an armed guard, regardless if the King of Spain appears with his own -which, mind, I have reason to doubt he will, as neither of us wants to give the appearance of fear or fear-mongering which always comes in joint fashion with uniformed troops. It is for that reason why I’m in civilian garments and my negotiating partner won’t be wearing anything to distinguish himself. It isn’t politics, this,” he sighed, “it isn’t even diplomacy, it is theatre and I should doubt that a single soul in Europe even capable at this point of pretending otherwise.”

__

“Isn’t it your _literal_ job to do so?” Arthur tried his best not to sneer, wondering what benefit politicians saw in poisoning themselves to be perceived as ‘honest’ – whatever that might be taken to mean.

__

“Wellesley, you’ll learn over the course of your career when not consenting to a fight is just and when it qualifies as a surrender. Phillip and I are meeting under the guise of discussing terms over which neither of us has any direct authority to assert because creating a more convincing illusion is not in the interest of either of the nations which we stand to nominally represent. We were hours away from a deal with Brussels when some ass-hat in the Upper House called upon the Spanish Ambassador and told him that Britain might not be adverse to surrendering claims to Gibraltar should our exit from the European Union be contingent upon it and as such months of negotiations were negated in a single breath.

__

“We’ll ignore the strategic and logistical importance of this particular rock for a moment - for no one ultimately votes on trade - and instead focus on the emotional implications we are ultimately meeting to play down: on an ordinary Friday afternoon, no one in London or Madrid would have a thought for Gibraltar at all, supposing they were even of the mind for international politics in the first place, Londoners would be angry that we are still required to pay for an elective body in which we no longer have a vote, and Madrilenians would be peeved that the stability of their city and country is entirely tied to a parliament that has done exactly nothing since the referendum beyond talk about Brexit without having yet reached a consensus. But now everyone is up in arms over the fate of a place they never otherwise think about, certainly not in terms of rightfully being ‘theirs.’ The fact that the House of Lords thinks so little of the British public and their participation in the democratic process that they play dirty with foreign powers in hopes of necessitating another referendum is irresponsible and utterly reprehensible. I’m sorry that I’m being made to see this claim through to its final act, truly, I’m ashamed before my city and constituents that I am even being made to participate in the charade, for my presence on this stage confessing it for a farce rather than the UKs attempt to save face.”

__

It certainly sounded theatrical. Arthur wondered how anyone to have received even a rudimentary education could honestly have faith in the wisdom of the mob and was tempted to inquire as much, save for the fact that doing so would likely result in him suffering another long-winded party line spoken with the over-zealous-passion of a tragically middle-class pencil pusher in the process of justifying their place in society by quoting a few lines of Shakespeare out of context with the expressed principle of causing others to feel comparatively small.

__

“Could it be that The Crown is instead testing you in response or reaction to Marie’s birthday party?” he instead suggested, hoping to meet Tarleton on his level. “I mean, I know that was more of a Hewlett-move, a way of saying ‘this isn’t your castle, it is ours, as is Edinburgh and your legitimacy here is at our pleasure, not the other way around’ but,” he paused, continuing as slowly as he supposed one must when engaging politicians and other invalids, “maybe Liverpool as a whole -not just you and your brothers and the relative hegemony you enjoy in local politics and affairs - sends the same message … constantly?” he suggested uncomfortably. “And the Monarch is now calling your bluff? If it were me, I mean … I don’t know I would be so quick to let her.”

__

Tarleton looked ready to object.

__

“Hear me out,” Arthur continued to press him, “I know you don’t believe in diplomacy but maybe you should have a crack at it? No offence, but as a member of this ‘tax paying populous’ you cited in your denunciation of the whole afternoon, I kind of want more of a conversation than a few scripted courtesy lines, even if you are right in saying that neither yourself not His Majesty have any direct influence on the outcome.”

__

“If it is a comfort to you, I’ll make the same argument I’ve made with respect to Ireland as I’ve been authorised to do, but that doesn’t change my knowledge that the Spanish Crown will then in turn say something to the effect of doing their part to convince elected officials to consent to these terms, and two deadlines will come and pass without resolution on either side,” Tarleton consented, however uncommittedly.

__

The two rode in silence for a few minutes, each of them disappointed both in what they saw in one another and in the cultural aspects that caused both of their reactions and internalisations some measure of validation.

__

Much as Arthur was able to resent himself for the ways in which he struggled to interact in ways both meaningful and entirely banal, he was at least pleased that he would never have to suffer the perils of being the sort of officer who had a beer with the men under his command, who translated this manipulative, fully misleading friendliness into a post-military career that exposed the limitations of promises kept –

__

The worst of it was, he suspected Tarleton of truly meaning well, though he would never say as much aloud.

__

“Hey, look at it this way,” he said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “of all the bullshit born from Brexit, Gibraltar now has a National Team of their own, which at least makes negotiations more fun, whatever is to come from them.”

__

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tarleton sneered. “It just makes football worse.”

__

It was a point that was hard to argue. “Football has been seen as ‘soft diplomacy’ for decades,” Arthur shrugged, adding with undue sarcasm, “Don’t know if you listen to The Ramble but in Corsica it seems to have shifted to guerrilla warfare, that might be something for you. For us both. Let’s us blow this off and prepare with the war with France that the economic circumstance your average voters have invited upon themselves will surely bring.”

__

Tarleton raised his eyebrows and the corners of his lips at the slight but did not comment on it. Arthur shrunk back in his seat, question what it was that compelled him to speak so contradictory to what he understood to be protocol.

__

“I might be keener if England didn’t have a kick-off at the same time, which reminds me,” Tarleton said, pulling out his phone, “I do in fact have an assignment for you. I’ve the whole Sky Go package, I never use it for reasons obvious, I’m sure,” he paused, continuing quickly from a situation he both struggled to acknowledge and which he seemed to recognise Arthur truly was not mature enough to address, “but having forgotten to cancel you can watch the England match and report to me at halftime. The password is Nelson, with the N capitalised but with an 11 instead of the ‘L’ in the middle.”

__

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Arthur muttered beneath his breath.

__

“Too easy to hack?”

__

“I just … how can you possibly be satisfied with that signing?” the young officer again could not help but to challenge. “No one is arguing that Everton isn’t in desperate need of a striker but he’s on the wrong side of thirty and even at his best was never worth the price tag.”

__

“Watch your mouth,” Tarleton cautioned. It was an invitation for Arthur to object, and frankly, more helpful than the retired colonel’s attempt at a pep-talk though the sentiment was the same. Arthur gave him a light but genuine smile. Life was a struggle even at the best of times, but it did, somehow, go on.

__

“I just hope he doesn’t embarrass the England squad today the way he did against Spain in the Euros, rolling around for what was it – 48 minutes crying ‘I’ve been killed!’ I mean, that wasn’t just a dive, that is an entire Olympic discipline all to its own right,” he complained of the skipper's performance.

__

“I’m pulling rank,” Tarleton warned.

__

“Fine,” Arthur consented flatly. “I’ll watch your stupid match.”

__

“Want to trade?” Tarleton asked with the same absence of amusement as he handed his phone over.

__

“Gladly,” Arthur told him in earnest as he studied the pre-match coverage playing silently on the screen. He took pause. “Sir Banastre … what do I do if it rings?”

__

“No one is going to call while negotiations are underway,” the MP dismissed. “In the unlikely event that something back home causes anyone to forget the high stakes of my meeting with the nominal head of state with even less to offer than I’m privileged to consent …” he stopped, considered and readjusted, “if the Daily Mail calls for a quote, don’t answer. If it is The Sun you can say whatever you bloody well please, if only to spite Effie Gwillim. If it is the hospital or Mary directly, fetch me immediately - anyone else in my family you can ignore, I’ll call them back when this is done. Answer if it is the Foreign Minister or anyone outranking him, make my excuses, be polite, try not to insult the captain of our national team when ‘soft diplomacy’ depends on good ol’ Horatio not getting injured.”

__

__

__

__

Sir Banastre had not seemed convinced of his orders, which was unfortunate giving that thirty-eight minutes into the match the call no one was expecting in fact came.

__

Arthur Wellesley did as his monarch’s personal secretary had instructed, informing the base that he needed both a car and a helicopter for the MP, explaining to a logistics officer in the same words he had been given to relay to Tarleton personally that events back in England had altered the situation enough that no solution to the Gibraltar fiasco could be presently arrived at, but as he stood before the door, questioning how he was going to break the news in a crowded room without compromising talks further, it occurred to him that it was not expressly the case that the Duke of Richmond’s untimely death would halt diplomacy here.

__

For what felt the first time in his life, Arthur Wellesley had complete control over the way others would be given to perceive reality and he knew from his most recent experience of many in making a complete tit of himself that rationality evaporated against sudden emotion, against confusion or turmoil, even in those with a fairly strong hold on such – which, he equally guessed that petty tyrants and crowned heads were not themselves given to being.

__

He recalled a game he used to watch girls and boys play together at school in which they would offer two truths and a lie about themselves for the object of their filtration to guess at the bluff, the irony being that from a third party perspective, the lie was often as telling as that which could be factually verified or observed. Arthur had arrived on one such fib, which, for the moment at least, would solve all of the problems opened by this sham of a meeting that was meant to address them. He would only have to speak it once, provided he did so convincingly enough to invite no counter or question.

__

He knocked one before walking in.

__

“Your Majesty,” he greeted the king with a bow, continuing to Tarleton in sombre tones with a less elaborate gesture, “My Lord, pardon the interruption, but there has been a development compromising to the continuation of these talks. The Duke of Richmond was found dead this morning and Her Royal Highness requests your immediate return.”

__

Tarleton, thankfully, seemed focused on the verbs. His Majesty, however, heard the sham honorific which was significant as it suggested a possible challenge to ascension. As Arthur understood the Scottish situation from years of being taken for a papist, the whole of Catholic Europe wanted to see Edmund Hewlett inherit a crown as his American wife shared their confession, if only in name. That the Queen disliked them both was hardly a secret, but it was also hardly relevant as even if there was no bad blood between the families Hewlett and Windsor, Lady Anna would never inherit the English title with her husband, retaining only her Scottish one should her husband take his birth right.

__

This had the benefit of splitting territories and terms of address, which was enough to quiet domestic tensions that might arise in the north and the border region. However, Great Britain’s allies did not, and did not need to know how fickle and fleeting long held hostilities could prove themselves in a populous both too bound by tradition and confused by formalities to be truly invested in following the succession itself.

__

His referring to Tarleton with undue respect strengthened the prospect of a challenge to the throne which Arthur was prepared to promise to see sorted out in a way that mirrored Spain’s interests, provided, of course Gibraltar was dropped from the conversation in Brussels.

__

As there was no actual conflict, he reasoned, even a junior officer could effectively defuse it.

__

__

* * *

__

__

“I will say this for PSG, it is far easier to buy a ticket than it is to find parking in the city as a whole,” Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord slighted both Paris and the club side that bore its name from within the VIP box where he was spending his Saturday on police request.

__

“Did you have to pay for your seat?” Fouché inquired. This was not an offer for reimbursement as much as it was a test of how willing the powerful, influential and therefore infamous sport agent felt himself with regard to the inquiry. The two had only met once before on a panel assembled for the purpose of analysing a series of texts alleging to relate to sports-based statistics and predictions, assumed to instead be an algorithmic code programmed for the purposes of insider trading.

__

Assumed? Fouché felt himself smile slightly at the vocabulary the panel’s small measure of successful cooperation had lent to memory. He knew – definitely - that the two parties at hand had been speaking over currency manipulation rather than corners taken, as he had ordered one of his agents to provide the temptation and to create enough pressure to make sure the targets took the bait. Exposure would have been a disaster for France, had, under the conditions crated by the prosecuting body, such been a possibility. No one in the panel’s collective pay grade had gotten to where their were in their respective professions absent of the ability to spot opportunities for further self-enrichment and the Hewlett-Simcoe pre-trial had proven no different. Talleyrand had accepted the weak arguments of the English to and for his own benefit, urging Fouché to recommend no further action as though there had ever existed a question of his actually moving to do so, a truth he acknowledged with a wink.

__

The men had only met once which would have sufficed Fouché’s interest had the autopsy he received a week prior not effectively reopened the case. This time, however, it was not in his immediate power to entice the man to the fruits of same act of corruption.

__

As the man’s expression since taking the seat to his left told, he was more than aware of his position to negotiate his own fee.

__

Talleyrand, who could enter any stadium in Europe without prior notice or introduction, declined to answer the question posed to him directly. “Do you think it safer?” he asked dryly.

__

“As compared to driving?” Fouché wondered. This was not going well.

__

“As compared to last weekend?” Talleyrand moved to clarify with a waving gesture at the scene before them from their place behind a panel of bullet-proof glass in the VIP lounge. It would have been too telling to meet at either of their offices, so the police minister had extended an invitation to the Parc des Princes. They had arrived separately and seemed to sit together merely from happenstance. Fouché, who had brought his eldest along for the afternoon watch the boy for a moment as he lent one of the children whose friendship he had won himself on the merits of a half-hour’s physical proximity, looking instantly to regret this choice as the little girl either continued his narration or declined to do so, from the few metres space Fouché could not tell if they continued to whisper amongst themselves or not.

__

Half-wondering, half-worrying what it was that had the pair so preoccupied prior to kick-off, he turned back to Talleyrand, frowning, “Last weekend? No. Security is always intensified at internationals. Beyond that, I’ve found over the past few days I have very little jurisdiction in ensuring the public’s safety if the scope is limited to a league match. Were you aware that flares and people burning them in stadiums are now UNESCO-protected as ‘football culture’?”

__

“I was,” Talleyrand answered, the lips that seemed small within the scope of his jowly face lifting into a cruel smile, “honestly half the reason I agreed to this meeting was to watch your reaction to the moronic ways people with free time chose to spend and defend it.”

__

“Case in point,” Fouché said, reaching for his briefcase, reaching, specifically for the file that should have never found its ways to his eyes to begin with and the periodical that suggested the agent might have some insight to its contents.

__

“Apropos, I’ve heard he is here, l'empereur,” Talleyrand continued, somewhat adrift.

__

“Nero or Napoléon?” Fouché scoffed, gesturing, “Down there behind the bench with the injured Mbappé as though he were merely waiting out a single match ban. Making notes last I had a look. Liberté,” he called out to his son, “bring me the binoculars?”

__

“It is just getting good!”

__

Fouché sighed. “The match hasn’t even … never mind,” he returned to Talleyrand, “not much to see anyway, just another administrative hold up in the week I needed one least.”

__

“Can I ask something?” a woman leaned over from the row behind them, “is that his real name, Napoléon?” she posed with a tone that implied laughter though her lips barely parted. Talleyrand’s posture indicated that he knew who she was, the Mona-Lisa smile the woman teased spoke to her assumption that most people did, though Fouché could not place her. Fine lines that crossed the corners of her eyes and lips suggested that she was too old for Instagram or YouTube, which would have been his initial assumption based only on a conceit that she did not bother herself to conceal. Perhaps she was in music or television, he tried to place, though certainly not anything respectable.

__

“Legally it is Napoleone,” he answered, “but in the region he calls home such is hardly worth remark. Do you know what the most common given-name is for boys born in the Muslim world?”

__

“Muhammed or some variation thereof?” the woman guessed.

__

“Correct,” Fouché answered, “but what do you suppose it was in two-thousand-two?”

__

“What is significant about that year?” she blinked.

__

“Osama,” Talleyrand interjected. “The mothers would have been pregnant during or shortly after the September 11th attacks.”

__

“Ah, and Corsican mothers are given to naming their sons after the island’s most famous native son out of the same … shall we say absence of wider social discretion?”

__

“No, he was born in two-thousand four after Napoleon Dynamite came out,” Fouché shook his head. The woman nodded as though this made a sort of sense that she had not the capacity to consider. Talleyrand looked posed to object on factual grounds. “I jest,” Fouché sighed, “he’s twenty-one and just happens to be another example proving a statistic. It is the same principle that a child born on 25th December has a much higher probability of being christened Noel than one born a few days earlier or later, making the task of say, locating a possible witness more of a challenge than it need be, as region, calendar, political influences are shared experiences and multiple individuals with practically identical resumes can live and have grown up within blocks of one another.”

__

“So, what is left to be said about Napoleone di Buonaparte?” Talleyrand wondered.

__

“Very little. As I was explaining to my oh-so-obedient-son before you arrived, he’ll have to make an account to the club and to the tax board which is sure to result in a fine given that out code is so needlessly intricate that even his mother who holds a post doctorate in applied mathematics insists on consulting with an accountant. The Gendarmerie made mistakes, there is no question, but the disciplinary measures will be taken internally, and UNESCO has made my recommendations all but irrelevant. But I’ve not asked you here to talk about Napoléon’s failed first offensive,” he told, producing the file and at last putting it into the hands of the man he hoped to again persuade.

__

“I’m not certain this is the best place to talk,” Talleyrand objected with a glance over his shoulder that was not as subtle as he had likely intended.

__

“Of course, it is the best place, darling. Everyone who is anyone does business here. Barras invited me out this afternoon with the promise that he’d explain the match with the kind of chauvinism men often mistake for chivalry when sport is involved, but the game has not yet begun and he’s already abandoned me for the company of the sheik as I well suspected he would,” she seemed to pout before correcting, “for otherwise, mind you both, I’d have not agreed to come. The two can make an arms or energy deal without outside speculation interfering and the pair of you, I suppose, can solve Europe’s most talked-about murder without it becoming a topic of conversation, at least one to include such mitigating factors as ‘witness’ and ‘suspects’ and whatever else might be speculated had Monsieur Fouché held this gathering in his office.”

__

“Suspect?” Talleyrand raised an eyebrow.

__

“Expert Council,” Fouché corrected. Who the devil was she? He tried to reason – the name Barras told him nothing in particular, for the mayor was known for having a string of mistresses, none of whom - of those Fouché had thus far found himself introduced to – were kept for their conversation.

__

“Well you were at that party, were you not?” the woman asked of his guest. “The one in Edinburgh for that MP’s daughter that so angered the English Queen and her consort, the Prince There-of?”

__

“Madame, what do you know -”

__

“Oh, only what the papers have been saying.”

__

That was just it. They had been silent on the subject. At least, nothing had been printed which Fouché had felt warranting of censor. Perhaps the woman was a reported herself, he considered, suddenly regretting his decision to speak in a semi-public sphere.

__

“The papers haven’t -”

__

“Pick up an 'Oops!' Or a 'Closer' recently? My daughter is simply obsessed with the Royal Family and all of its outlets and estuaries - Hortense, darling, come tell the police minister everything you told me ad nauseum about the feud between the Windsors and the Hewletts when we were driving back from the salon,” she said in a raspy voice meant to mimic a whisper with its mocking irony which the child likely mistook for excitement as she approached, “it might just help the National Police solve a murder!” the woman teased, her eyes growing round.

__

“Oh? Whose then?” the little girl, the same Fouché had seen his son playing with, asked of him.

__

“Wait,” the woman, who evidently could not tolerate a moment spent without clouding everyone’s collective attention, “where the devil is your brother?”

__

“He went to talk to Napoléon about taxes,” Hortense told her. Hearing this, Joseph-Liberté rushed back to explain, “When we asked about it, since you said I couldn’t go and -”

__

_“Excuse me?”_ the woman said, reaching for the binoculars his boy held.

__

“Right behind the bench,” Liberté directed as though he considered such helpful. Fouché, certain his son had put the idea into the other little boy’s head after once again being shown that it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission, ceased feeling badly that he had kept the fish he had bought him and his brothers on his desk the week-through. “It is what we were-” he began, less certain in his father’s expression than he had been moments prior.

__

“Ah, gentlemen, make my excuses to Paul should he desire my presence,” she sighed with an ironic, “it seems my son needs a strict talking-to about not wandering off somewhere as unsafe as a stadium under UNESCO-protections. Hortense, you are not to leave this room. I shan’t be long.”

__

“Okay …” the girl trailed off, her eyes drifting between Talleyrand and Fouché himself. “Should I still … do you want to know what I read about the party still? Or…”

__

“I’m curious,” Talleyrand answered.

__

“But you were there,” Hortense objected, seeming to question if he, too, was merely seeking out a bit of fun at her expense. Fouché could not guess at the child’s exact age, but he suspected she was old enough to understand and internalise her neglect without being able to give it words or emotionally process that which she lacked in love.

__

“He was,” Fouché confirmed, leaning to meet the child’s eyes in hopes of convincing her that he took her seriously, even if the line of inquiry lead him nowhere, “as was everyone keeping a secret that I’d rather like to know.”

__

“What secret?” she asked.

__

Fouché gave her a smile. “Why don’t I tell you one first?” he suggested, explaining albeit mostly to bring Talleyrand up to speed, “Last Saturday, so a little over a week ago, the day after the Duke of Richmond was found dead on his estate, Police Scotland sent the autopsy to my office asking for assistance based on an anomaly discovered in the routine tests they have to do when someone dies. You see Hortense, this man, the one who was brought to the coroner’s table, was given a Yellow Fever Vaccine-booster as recently as five years ago, suggesting that in such time he travelled south of the equator, or that such a trip had at one point been planned – which both the Duke of Richmond’s medical records and personal itinerary stand to negate. His brother, however -the one Britain buried three years ago right after his son Edmund’s wedding - made regular trips to Africa and the Middle East and as such would have trace Stamaril in his system.”

__

“You think someone switched the bodies?” Talleyrand asked.

__

“Well, I _know_ someone switched the bodes and I have my suspicions as to why, the matter that is troubling me is the question of why I know this _now_. You see, whomever handled the original investigation obviously took measures to cover its findings, likely because a number of highly important and influential people forced his hand … except, that the Officer in Charge of that inquiry had personal and political reason to pursue charges, reasons that would have stood to benefit The Crown, which makes this all the more baffling. It is almost as if … someone on the inside has sudden reason to break with whatever pact was made to ensure silence, and as it works out there were only a handful of occasions in which all of the possible suspects were all in the same room – so I suspect that something was said at this party Lord Edmund and Lady Anna threw in Edinburgh some weeks back that broke the fragile peace.”

__

__

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being that the offices of **Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety** and **Minister of Police** have long since expired, I went with **Ministère Public** and **Directeur Général (de la Police nationale)** respectively.
> 
> This admittedly sounds like something I made up in an attempt at artificially creating the dramatic swell in music you find in any kind of Anglican court drama, but the French legal system which is ordinarily preceded over by a series of justices is (and is only) set up to conduct a **trial by jury** in cases of treason under which terrorism falls, with seven judges also presiding. To convict, a verdict needn’t be unanimous, in such incidences a majority suffices. If I am wrong in any of this, French is like my fourth language and I don’t have a good German or English source at hand with which to compare notes.
> 
> Both Fouché and Talleyrand are credited with the quote **“It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.”** (probably being that it spoke to the general political climate in the eras they dominated, who knows if the words were ever actually spoken or by whom) but worry not, both will get their chance to utter the same sentence. I’m not taking sides here.
> 
>  **Ethics really is a curriculum requirement of any STEM programme in France.** I’d say something like ‘ask any Frenchman’ but real talk – if you also happen to live near the border, do yourself a favour and NEVER get into a conversation about it with anyone to have graduated that country’s university system … I speak from experience. (Another topic I would strongly urge avoiding is whose language is better at conveying the spectrum of human emotion … unless you are really looking to essentially curse someone out using words ordinarily only employed in expressing ‘the frustration of a fleeting thought’ or ‘the idiosyncratic behaviour signalling the meaninglessness of life.’ Somehow this happens to me a lot in dive bars.)
> 
> That I have no deep seeded love for Bonne Paris is no secret, that said I’ve frequented the city enough to know its patterns and **“a tourist every now and again in one of those knock-off replica jerseys where Neymar is misspelt that they sell in the gift-shop at the Eiffel Tower”** – this is a thing. The line **“I will say this for PSG, it is far easier to buy a ticket than it is to find parking in the city as a whole,”** sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. Never drive to Paris if you can do anything to help it, and if every you tire of the commerce and historic sites, **Parc des Princes** is worth the visit.
> 
> It seems redundant to tag something as anachronistic in a Modern AU, I know, I’m with you – but the **UNESCO protection of pyrotechnics as “football culture”** just fit the dialogue in the last scene so well that I could scarcely pass up the opportunity to cite the dumbest thing to make it into the early 2020 news cycle. Thus far, the only club I’ve heard of actually respecting this is the German second-tier club HSV, but I would imagine incidences becoming increasingly difficult to prosecute. 
> 
> For a blip in November 2018 **Gibraltar’s National Team** became the object of Spanish scorn after defeating Armenia on the road in the UEFA Nations League, with players of the Spanish National Team echoing Madrid’s demands on Brussels and Brexit via Twitter, often in less-than polite language. Not that the exchange between Atty and Ban mislead you (over something of absolutely no significance), but Gibraltar has had its national side recognised by FIFA since 2013, just no one realised it until they walked away with a win the same week the Spanish government shut down a Brexit deal for reasons around that same place.
> 
>  **Fethullah Gulen** is a religious cleric who has been living under asylum in the United States since a fallout with Erdogan in the late nineties after a corruption inquiry against the latter. Erdogan has since accused Gulen of trying to overthrow the Turkish government by prompting a military coup, which Gulen denies, saying that the president is simply threatened by anything that is not under his direct control. Shots fired?
> 
> … That is all I’ve got. You have anything for me? 
> 
> Up Next: We at a party we don't want to be at ...


	2. The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six weeks prior to the telling suicide, a teenager is witness to a confrontation at a ball held primarily to masquerade a presumptive heir’s political motives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t normally take it upon myself to emotionally prepare readers for what they may experience as I genuinely believe that every user on this site is more than capable of self-sorting and that alone anyone with an attention span to semi-regularly read twenty odd pages of something in whatever fandom you found this in (that isn’t additionally tagged with every conceivable _Hamilton: An American Musical_ relationship plus any combination of #mermaid, #hogwarts, #anal fisting or what have you) is likely mature enough to contend with the substance material I choose to present.
> 
> That said, while you yourself might well be ready without warning, many of the figures who either feature or offer their perspectives are _not_ and ALL of the triggers I might have marked rather than ‘creator chose not to use’ are … if not directly met, heavily alluded to. Okay, we good?
> 
> … Yeah, I know, that was kind of a bummer way for me to introduce an update. Not even any #anal fisting to balance it out either. Sorry about that.
> 
> Honestly, I normally use this space to tell a joke or talk sport but after that obligatory opening (and after nearly a month without my beloved Bundesliga) noting really feels like it would be amusing, appropriate or relevant, so let’s just crack on with it. As always, I hope you enjoy!

“How terribly considerate,” Marie Robinson said with the same painted smile he had watched her wear the evening. She passed him the bottle which she had just been given without affording much attention to the label which Cicero Ingram in turn found his eyes falling awkwardly upon as soon as he had it in his hands. Marie cleared her thought ever so slightly and he wondered if such was a faux pas - if her indifference was one of the cultural norms so deeply engrained in the subconscious that seemed shared by everyone else in attendance that such was expected to be observed as though there were no wider circumstance serving as a counter to such customs. This was not Cicero’s first visit to Britain or even to the castle itself, but it was the first time his company extended enough for him to realise that he was alone in his wonder at its grandeur. He felt misplaced and had inadvertently done everything within his might to admit to his deficits in social graces. In this, he found himself gently taken out of the conversation he had initiated, tasked by the event’s honoured guest to greet those who had come to Edinburgh under what she called the guise of a toast, a slight Cicero had reason to assume was directed at him.

He had never met Marie in person before, though in a sense she had been in his life since the morning everyone had learnt her name two years prior via a hashtag. On the eve of Edmund Hewlett’s wedding to one of Cicero’s mother’s best friends, Marie had made what she must have considered good use of the British public’s preoccupation with Anna Strong, coloured her pale blonde hair black and, donned in colours that suited neither her physical nor political disposition left her flat in London in the dead of night for the island’s other capitol, disguised by all of the other young women following the fashion of the day. She had managed to run for twelve hours before being found by a boy she barely knew who guessed at her strategy rather than simply falling into the easy solidarity that was hitting share. Cicero had come to meet Arthur Wellesley in the hours that his sense of heroism was turning into regret – he had himself been driven from Setauket where he had been living to Albany where the wedding was taking place by the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Manhattan Field Office who in a Hail Mary attempt to regain control of an attempt to capture the man suspected of holding then then-missing, then-senator Benedict Arnold captive played a voice mail recording of Marie sobbing for her father, presenting it as recent rather than nearly a week old. When Arthur was given a few hundred dollars cash and told to purchase a firearm by an adult who had ought to have been more responsible, he did so without question, hoping to end a situation he believed himself to have helped create by leading Police Scotland who had long been in collaboration with the American investigative bodies to capture a girl whose only real crime had been wanting to see her half-sister. When the weapon was later used in a shooting and Arthur was brought to the local station along with everyone else, Marie – who was not, in fact, being tortured by law enforcement officials - gave him cover by creating a distraction that was delivered in the form of pizza with messages targeting all of the politicians present written on the inner lid of the cardboard packaging in which the food came, saving not only Arthur from interrogation and eventual gun court, but, unbeknownst to anyone save for Cicero, Arthur and the other children stuck in the Albany police station, the Greatest Country on Earth from Itself.

Or so it had seemed at the time.

None of them had spoken of the incident since, and Cicero had now cause to worry that with his indecent interrogation over Arthur’s absence, he had robbed himself of the possibility of getting any answer of relevance from those saw serving as stand-ins.

“I should hope that you’ll join my friends and I in opening it after it has been given a chance to chill and the rounds which I am expected to make with my more dignified guests have caused me threat of otherwise growing equally as cold,” Marie continued in dark tones despite still wearing the same light smile. Cicero, who knew her almost entirely via a WhatsApp group chat, wished she would keep to the topics that had given him a sense of her character – memes about French midfielders in Serie A, political assessments that caused him to think that the presence of Fox News cause Americans to be far less apocalyptic around their political situation than the Britons taking their news from legitimate sources, rap music that had only found its way to British radio after becoming passé in the States. Granted, he wished he had stuck to such themes as well, but he was coming to notice that Marie could be positively rude without causing offence, which made him question if he by comparison had come off meaner in person than he trusted himself to be online. His gaze fell to his feet and rose almost as quickly as his shame turned again to self-consciousness, fearing in the slight pause that followed his friend’s quip that her guest imagined him to be assessing his handicap instead of simply wishing that he himself could disappear.

“Most certainly, should the night allow, Mademoiselle,” the man answered, turning his attention back to Cicero as he continued, “though I wonder … do you quite understand the socio-political implications of the ball being held in your honour? I’ll ask you to forgive the forwardness of my inquiry and its phrasing – no slight was intended, nor should you find offence if I am not in fact able to join you for that drink.”

“How delightful that you should take my offering as genuine, Monsieur Talleyrand,” she responded. “I am certain you should forgive my frankness in the extension of a direct counter to your misconceptions, but – oh dear, oh dear ‘the socio-political implications of my turning sixteen in such high-fashion?’ It is so laughable, for, you see, there are none. At least for anyone else in attendance. The Duchess Hamilton thinks she is celebration her younger brother’s ascension into that mad world of separatist-politics that would see him become at least a client king, Lady Anna is likely toasting the same - what with her American ideas of independence. Lord Edmund, I’m certain, knows this and will make exactly two more indications in kind to ensure that such talk never takes action, if you catch my meaning. Half the guests here are present to indicate their politics without being asked to expressly state them, the other half - including yourself - are here to do business, curious as I’m sure you are over who among my uncle’s high-profile clients is up for grabs, but should anything come from it, or not as I would suspect, it will be all over for the rest of you come January whereas for me, well! Though I doubt The Crown will see this as anything but a clever ploy to Lord Edmund’s credit, given my small role in the theatre of it, I won’t be afforded a part in the next Season, that is, I’ll not be presented to the Queen and expected to attend stately balls and charity functions with a bunch a teenagers who mistake themselves for interesting and important. I shan’t be kissing hands or curtseying to a bloody cake in hopes of cultivating a dated idea I cannot myself associate with simply because my father has all of the right associates. Can you so much as imagine the indignity of it all?”

“I must then disappoint you,” Talleyrand smiled, “such has never crossed my mind.”

“Then perhaps later, should you take my offer more literally than if was originally intended, we two might instead toast to your tremendous fortune of not being made subject to the traditions and aberrations of this island,” Marie suggested. “But now if you’ll excuse me, I must return to listening to the recitations of the idle rich who imagine that lauding me with virtue I certainly do not possess in verse they certainly did not themselves write accomplishes much by way of rendering me ‘charming’ or them ‘clever.’”

With that she turned on her heel and turned back with a smile more convincing than the one she had on offer for most of the evening thus far and a wink that was perhaps intended to negate it – rather than carrying flirtatious overtones – it seemed to say ‘I am laughing at you as well,’; the smile that crossed the sports agent’s face speaking to the same sentiment. Cicero offered an awkward farewell in a French not nearly as fluid as his friend’s though he had understood all of what had been spoken, turning quickly himself to hurry after her and hide the embarrassment he feared his cheeks confessed.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked when he caught up to her at the corner’s reconvening of everyone whom he had spent the last several years feigning familiarity with on social media.

“All and none of it,” Marie dismissed. “Debutants have not been presented to Her Majesty since the fifties, so I’d not have had to kiss anyone’s hand in annotation to my station, Kitty here, for example, would have instead have had her hand kissed as a member of the aristocracy.”

“And it would have been as dreadful as everything else by which the season is defined,” the girl insisted with a laugh that felt forced.

“And Queen Charlotte’s Ball, oh pray tell, do you still have to curtsey to that hideous cake?” Marie inquired before Cicero could interject to clarify that he had instead been asking if she had meant what she said about Edmund Hewlett, or rather, that which she had alleged about his politics. He knew he ought to feel some relief as the conversation continued without his input, but instead he felt himself further alienated by his inability to contribute to the topic.

“It was the only thing I properly could remember that I was meant to curtsey to,” Rachel laughed, “Honestly! At some events – and there are at least five a week for the whole six months the sentence lasts – one is meant to observe protocol when engaging the Royals, at others to do so would be a faux pas and I spent most of my Season in the shadows hoping they would hide my confusion. And this despite finishing school and practicing with my parents all morning and afternoon if the day allowed.”

“And yet you still came out of it with a marriage contract, Lady Campbell,” Farid seemed to tease. Excepting himself, Kitty Pakenham and Olivia Sparrow, all of the under-twenty-fives present had attended the same London college with varying degrees of overlap. Farid and Ismael (who had spent the better part of the evening thus far openly admitting to their own hypocrisy by calling one another ‘haram’ between sips of sherry) had been in Arthur’s class and were currently both reading economics at Oxford where they claimed either night-life was a let-down or they truly were the Asian nerds everyone at school had accused them of being. Farid’s older sister Anahita (who was already established in the City and on her second husband - ‘another’ MP) had met this assessment with a fluttering of her eyelashes that suggested confirmation. Rachel, who had only just taken her A-Levels the year prior was forgoing further education, either because she no longer saw the point (as she was expecting) or, as Cicero instead expected, she had not seen ‘the point’ for quite a while and had left school with marks that indicated as much. Olivia was at Trinity due to a bribe in the form of a new building bearing her father’s name, which few considered to be controversial now that a number of Americans had essentially done the same by way of photoshopping themselves onto water polo teams to fluff their Ivy League applications. Kitty, who in contrast to her closest friend had wanted to escape Dublin as quickly as she could despite having earned a place at its elite university and a number of others, had shocked everyone by freely electing to go ‘red-brick’, causing her peers to place private bets on how long it would be before her parents cut her off completely. Susan, like Marie, was still at school, and perhaps owing to the fact that she did not have parents whose expectations she existed to fulfil still processed a number of her own, unlike both Cicero and the birthday girl herself who were both bitterly resigned to extracurriculars taking up every waking hour that was not spent in study in hopes of surpassing the circumstances of their births by achieving all that the others took as granted.

“It sounds more impressive that I assure you it is,” Rachel retorted with a roll of her eyes, “in the Highlands anyone who owns a patch of land is by definition a Lord.”

“Laird,” Marie corrected, “Actually it is quite funny, my stepmother might have assumed the role you now enjoy were it not for her wish to live the values you espouse without practice.”

“Well, few of us can so easily come upon opportunities to create such marvellous offence,” Kitty told, inviting an exit to the exchange before it could turn from banter to blows as she had been for much of the evening, and, Cicero expected from the stories he had heard, much of her life prior. “Oh Marie, as wicked as you can prove, I do truly admire your insolence.”

“Do you? Strange … as I recall, you ended your Season with a far more illustrious crown than my own,” Rachel smiled, incapable of letting go of whatever offence existed between them.

“I ended the Season all but friendless and the real irony is had it but started the way it concluded I would have gotten to skip the whole thing altogether and then, perhaps, my family would have accepted the proposal out of perceived necessity.”

“Do you still mourn him so?” Olivia asked, setting aside her drink as she moved to take her friend’s hand, a gesture Kitty was quick to disallow.

“Absolutely, without question or doubt,” Kitty gave with a dramatic air, plainly overacting as she clasped her hands to her heart and continued in the same vain, “should my Atty ever return to me, I dare say no obstacle of pride, propriety, or want of greater personal fulfilment could prevent me from forever and always were it on offer.”

“I knew it! He still speaks just as fondly of you,” Olivia smiled as though she were personally invested. Marie took a step back; Rachel crossed her arms; and Farid and Ismael exchanged glances that seemed to debate the merits of watching as this unfolded or sneaking out to smoke some of the weed that latter had brought as a birthday gift. Cicero, guessing that Kitty would not have been continuingly asked to relive her undeserved fall from grace had he not started so many questions in kind upon her arrival, wondered if he should himself slip away into the evening air, wondering if doing so without the aid of an illicit substance would be a further faux pas as those who could act without consequence, it seemed to him here, almost uniformly did.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Kitty cursed, “of course he does. He wants to sleep with you and evoking me and his so-said sorrows has never failed him in the past, where is the incentive to stop now that there really _is_ no hope of him and I getting back together?”

“I personally never understood the appeal he had for you in the first place,” Ismael commented, removing his hand from the pocket of his dinner jacket and its temptation to turn this into the kind of party that only white kids ever seemed to get to go to.

“It was not him personally on any level long though I tried to deny such to myself,” Kitty quipped, “it was, rather, the microcystic society that consumes the ideals and ambitions of girls too young to counter the most recent thing they have all read with anything approaching experience.

“He was a cast off to whom I paid no mind until suddenly he embodied everyone’s mental image of Edward Cullen, which made pale, lanky and poorly kempt the ideal to which one aspired to find in a suitor. I hazard to think what it was he saw in me if he saw me at all, but having been the quintessential Basic Bitch – I’m talking daily selfies and stories, pink UGGs, an ugly-ass Louis Vuitton that went with nothing but was carried with everything because I thought it class -”

“Oh, I feel that on a spiritual level,” Anahita said of the handbag whilst Susan expressed some doubt that Kitty had ever in her life owned comfortable shoes.

“Fifteen minutes late for class or anywhere else I was meant to be with Starbucks,” Kitty continued as she nodded in affirmation, “naturally a Pumpkin Spice Latté at that, and _naturally_ with a soy-milk substitute because Beyoncé went vegan,” she rolled her eyes, “It was I was, in short completely expendable, par, painfully normal and yet, presumably unlike the rest of you, painfully aware of it … so you know … everyone wanted to know me and Atty wanted to be literally anyone but himself. Match made.”

“It was a lot more than that,” Olivia tried to interject.

“But then,” Kitty continued, fixing her gaze on Cicero directly, “he moved to London as you know and ‘Twilight’ turned into ‘Me Too’ and all _these bitches_ ,” she gestured _,_ “thought him non-threatening so long as he used the ‘girlfriend-in-Ireland’ line – no, it is okay,” she shifted to Rachel. “It was even at the time, the sex was good, why shouldn’t I want to share what I already had in abundance? Anyway, it is not why we split so none of you should feel ashamed. Drop the pretence, it tends to bore.”

“Damn,” Farid shook his head, “I never believed for a second he got as much ass as he claimed what with his acne and braces and – what did you used to say about his hair, Marie?”

“My dad used to just call him Schalke because of his Ruhr Valley looking mullet and I used to say that if it was shorted on the sides, he could have passed for one of those Americans who goes and shoots up his school,” she answered.

“Ay, that’s cold. That is just cold. I only meant the Ruhrpott thing. Any road, Kitty,” he shifted, “I think you are maybe being too kind in your recollections and suffering as a result.”

“Oh, the heart fails to pine,” Kitty claimed.

“Settle a debate for us then?” Ismael interjected. “Atty _claims_ he isn’t Catholic -”

“I think only because he hated having to sit with the five other non-Protestants at lunch because he thought he was better than us, or because he didn’t want to share credit with the two blokes who all of Britain would blame if he went and did what Marie had a mind to suggest,” Farid continued to jest.

“Nah, mate – just me. No one gave a damn about Persians until Iran became the object of US sanctions.”

“They can’t tell the difference,” Farid whispered, “Hey, Trinity – you thought I was Arab, didn’t you?”

Olivia looked uncomfortable.

“He meant ‘Paki’, obviously, all three of us,” Anahita corrected. “And Trump over here,” Cicero blinked and looked over his shoulder, unable to accept that he was meant, “you thought we were all ‘Mexican’, or? Now, can we fucking drop Arthur Wellesley as a topic? Can’t you see it is hurting Kitty’s feelings?”

“In a sec,” her younger brother said, “I just want to clear something up once and for all -”

“Oh, do you mean if he showered after sex?” Kitty guessed. “Come, we shouldn’t speak ill giving everything else he is faced with right now. Or, Marie? Rachel? Susan? I can’t imagine that question was directed exclusively at myself.”

“Kitty, honestly, it wasn’t what you seem to think,” Rachel stammered.

“I truly never did,” Marie shrugged, “Not with him, not with anyone.”

“There is no way that can possibly be true – _you?_ A virgin?”

“ _At sixteen?_ ”

“You’ve told stories about doing a line on a toilet seat with Boris Johnson and you never…?”

“What with BoJo?” Marie blinked, “Farid, you were there, that is _all_ that transpired. Is my moral character so in question thanks to my participation in this particular Scottish Play that I stand accused of giving myself to every walking joke our culture has produced? First Arthur, now – oh dear, oh dear – I fear I need a harder drink.”

“That is not what we meant, I’m sure,” Cicero tried though his voice had not been part of the chorus, “it is just that you are – understand this isn’t said to cause you injury of offence – but you are so gorgeous that it is hard for any of us to comprehend.”

“Because none of you would ever be so bold,” Marie sighed, “and even if that were not the issue between us, there is the matter of my character in contention and I’ve found it quite rare that a man can be tempted by a woman who offers him any challenge. Sex, insofar as I know if form narrative is the physical derivative of a power struggle and no one in our circles is particularly intent on surrender.

“Kitty acknowledges she was a catch because she offered no counter to the image you all coveted, and so many of the rest of you let yourselves be made docile by her Instagram that you welcomed advances that you associated with a perceived equivalence – don’t mistake me, I was taken with the same notion of wanting to be like someone whom everyone seemed to like. But that is just it, isn’t it, even if I should be ‘likeable’ and ‘agreeable’ enough to your eyes, I’m not exactly ‘sexy’, am I? No man would ever approach a woman or take her up on an offer if he knew without needing subject himself to example that she understood the offside rule or could explain Iran Contra.”

“True,” Ismael gave.

“I think it has less to do with that than the fact of your father,” Rachel suggested dryly.

“Are you kidding?” Marie deflected. “My dad would probably high five me before warning that he did not want to know any of the details. He is a whore and always has been. But then he is dumb, or at least does little to contradict being viewed in that light.”

“Oh, how tragic for you, Mary Elizabeth, to think yourself so clever,” the duchess continued darkly. “You imagine that you’ve found a way out of Society but no young woman with a dowry like yours will escape being an eventual pawn in some business transaction taking the form of a marriage contract, especially one so keen to demonstrate your proclivity for such calculations. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy an empty bed once you are wed, but now you should be having all of the fun you can find.”

* * *

“Edmund!” Anna laughed as she made a weak effort to push away his advances. “We’ll be late for our own ball.”

That was entirely the point. He parted his lips when she turned to face him that his clenched teeth might resemble something of a smile.

“When I married you,” he remined her gently as he might, “you were none too keen on affairs such as this.”

“Such is hardly true!” Anna protested, playfully pushing him away before he could part her lips for a kiss. “Do you not remember our engagement?”

“I remember our INS-gagement,” he mused, “you and I and everyone changing our clothing to shoot a few photos in order to meet your country’s ridiculous immigration requirements … I’m sure we can still manage to strip ourselves and redress all in time for supper.”

The two had been wed partially in response to everything that had recently gone wrong in their lives – lives that had hardly intersected until shared desperation found the form of fast decisions. Anna, who had been living on her best friend’s couch since finalizing her divorce needed to find new lodgings before Abigail moved out of her Setauket townhouse to the Brownstone her intended had newly purchased in Brooklyn; Edmund, who had downed half a bottle of Xanax prior to defending his doctoral thesis had missed a deadline to file an extension on his student visa not considering that he would need to do so and had to find a way of staying in New York until his decertation could be rescheduled. They had originally agreed to his paying her thirty-thousand dollars for her troubles over the course of three years plus the shared apartment, but such contracts were easily forgotten in the romance that quickly bloomed between them and all that had come to fill their garden since – their son first and foremost, and then all of Anna’s crippling expectations that he had resorted to crime and cover-up to see fulfilled, filling him in turn with unspoken resentment that was met with blame he did not consider he deserved and additional ambition he did not consider Anna had any more right to set than he had obligation to satisfy.

There were times when Edmund truly wondered if it might not be in the better interest of all to call things off in half a year –

\- but Edmund adored their son. He adored his wife as well, or rather would stand a better chance of remembering that he was meant to if Scotland had not come between them. Anna had not let him choose between her and his homeland – a place he would have been more than happy to leave behind for the quiet life he had presented when they had first met, when she did not know his first name or that his last meant anything special across the Atlantic. He would have chosen her - at least, he would have chosen the woman he had mistaken her to be before his title had caused him to see her for the rebel she was at heart, but Anna demanded that he embrace both her and his birth rite, and Edmund has thus spent much of their marriage stuck between protecting the Scottish people from his wife’s politics and pretending to engage her ideas rather than undermine them.

“Supper isn’t until midnight; we can’t possibly keep our guests waiting.”

“Until midnight, I’ll remind you, they are not out guests.”

“Marie will spend half the evening in a corner with the ten or so people she considers friends as she always does, occasionally exchanging to ordinary pleasantries in the most unpleasant way as falls upon her petty mind -”

“She is sixteen, Anna,” Edmund said, hoping to remind his wife that she, by contrast, was an adult and ought to at least strive to conduct herself as such. “At that age I was no different.”

“And see how much has changed in the decades since,” she mocked, her tone hinting at flirtation or that she might be open to his offer.

“Ah … that I will give you,” Edmund tried. Anna retuned to her vanity, turning her back to his as she sat and began to fumble with and fasten the jewellery that had been lain out for her. She had grown rather fat in pregnancy and had scare dropped a pound since making suspicion difficult and certainty harder still, but Edmund could not help but to notice in her silhouette that his wife’s stomach remained curiously round when she sat – which came as some relief. If she were with child she would be object to furthered sexual activity, and Edmund found that he could not get it up for her when she acted so very juvenile, and because he struggled to say as much, Anna fell into short cycles of anger and depression, where she would accuse him of no longer finding her physically attractive and eat processed sugars until her pituitary gland released the endorphins women who behaved like spoilt children needed to speak in the same restrictive mental capacity – ‘hashtag: body positive.’ How he loathed her at times. He sometimes considered taking a lover who looked very much like her to prove a point – but he could never quite settle on which before banishing the idea and returned wishing instead that she would find someone at court to fill the roles she wished him to play. At least that way he might have some quiet time to focus on his studies, on the stars that told nothing of human destiny however much the women’s glossies that defined twelve of the fifteen constellations his wife could name would suggest otherwise.

“They will need more, you realise,” Anna instructed. “Edna arrived alone without the Hamilton coalition that seemed secure last month when this was all planned. Edmund, you _must_ show resolve.”

“I would advise you not to read too much into the politics in this reduced audience,” Edmund cautioned, hoping his delight did not transcend to tone. “You have my sister’s full support in your venture, what Sir William is objecting to is the staging and not on the grounds he cited his cohorts. I wouldn’t give credence to rumours or do anything in my own venture to facilitate their spread so I speak now solely for your benefit and solely for your ears, my dear, but his – that is Sir William – his young wife is with his complete knowledge and consent engaging in extramarital ah … activities with the England skipper and Nelson’s support of the monarchy is superfluous to say it lightly. I can’t imagine the limited influence Nelson presently exercises will last out his next extended injury, the affair either, for that matter.”

What he failed to tell her was that he had all but arranged this outcome. Half of Anna’s mounting obsession with ‘freeing’ Scotland from English rule had been spurned on by his older sister, the rest from her Americanisation of all conflicts and concepts she encountered. He would never betray his Queen and he would never allow his countrymen to either, which at times meant making sure that the loudest voices were silenced before they would be given audience. Edna was a duchess, but she shared her influence on her Lord husband with a number of the clan’s other members, Sir William among them. As neither made any great secret of his wife Emma’s lovers and Horatio Nelson made none whatsoever about his politics, Edmund simply rang his counterpart in Merseyside, asking the Lord Mayor if he might be troubled to personally offended the monarchist sensibilities of Everton’s new captain prior to Napoli being hosted across the street on Tuesday night, that the visiting club’s chairman might be tempted by whatever his wife spoke after her little tryst to extend his visit a few days and travel north for a few choice words with his chieftain. Enemies though their houses might be at the moment, Clayton Tarleton, himself a republican who lost nothing in classing attention to this flaw had been happy to oblige him, and Anna, Edna and all who would see Unification undone would never know the difference.

“Then we have to ensure that we are making full use of the same weapon and what better opportunity have we to cultivate the hearts and minds of -” Anna continued to prattle. He had long since ceased listening.

“Athletes? Agents? This isn’t the United States, sport isn’t a field of political contention,” he lied. “Besides, of the fifty-two attendees to have ever been active in that branch, the half are here under Tarleton management, of the ten or so Scots who are not, their presence alone says enough of what you hope them to and .. aside from Sir Alex, truly not one of them ever has anything interesting to say.”

“I thought you hated Sir Alex,” Anna frowned.

“Save for the fact that he’s likewise involved in horse breeding.”

“George Hanger means to write an article -” Anna began anew with a measure of hope Edmund did not quite care to hear out.

“He means to interview a host of managers and MPs to get an idea of who knows the most about Brexit, I’ve heard. How he plans to turn that into a piece giving that it seems there is nothing of the referendum not presently up for negotiation is anyone’s guess.”

“If there were to be a photograph of you and Sir Alex chumming it up no one would take notice that the Hamilton coalition was a no-show,” Anna suggested.

“No one who does notice aside from yourself will have a care to give, that is what I am arguing.”

“If I didn’t know better - which to be frank I’m not sure that I do – I would say that not only are you not entirely willing to heed your people’s cries for independence, you can’t so much as hear them. Edmund, we won’t be sending a signal if we are to delay -”

“We’ll be demonstrating our humanity which sends a far more powerful message than the direct dealing you wish me to engage,” he told her sternly. “I’ll give you the argument I offered Sir Banastre to ease his natural hesitation in your want to use his ward to threaten Elizabeth’s legitimacy: Mary Robinson won’t live to see her only child reach maturity. She won’t get to be there when Marie does her A Levels, she won’t see her presented to Society, she won’t get to weep with pride in Tokyo at the 2020 Olympics, or when she obtains her degree, marries, has children, enjoy any milestone beyond this evening – her doctors are not even giving her until Christmas and she is too weak to stay at the party for very long, I’m confident she will be forced to retire long before supper. So we will let her the next hour or so of seeing her child celebrated in grand fashion even if that only means sitting at a table with the man she spent half a lifetime with and speaking of things of little significance whilst watching Marie play at status between concealing the hell she must be going through by exchanging witticisms with the friends who did not abandon her in the battle you mean to wage. There will be ample time for politicking as the night proceeds, but for now I don’t want to do anything to distract from or dampen every hope Mary can find in her daughter’s laughter, even if, as you suspect, it comes at our expense.”

Anna took a deep breath. “That may be the first time you’ve referred to yourself throughout this conversation. I understand, of course I understand, and I respect the point you make, but are you conscious of how given you’ve been to the second person when it comes to politics? I thought us on the same side.”

“I’m on Scotland’s side. Take that how you will,” he said as he moved to take his leave of her. “But stay upstairs until eight, I’ll come to fetch you and we will descend together as is custom.”

* * *

Benjamin Tallmadge had been on his lunch hour when he received a call that he was not expecting from a number that had never before dialled his own. He was somewhat hesitant to answer when he saw the name illuminated on his lock screen -

\- But then, he supposed, he had been waiting long enough.

His relationship with the stepson of the man with whom he ran a legal firm was itself non-existent, rather, the boy made a show of refusal in acknowledging the past they shared by affording him as few words as possible. Ben had never been certain how he might broch the topic in a way that would prove productive, and he was not fully confident that his motives for wanting such a dialogue were as selfless as he would rather wish. He wanted to be absolved of his crimes more than he wanted to extend a child the opportunity to recover from the turmoil of their first meeting years before and was conscious of this character flaw to the extent that he actively feared anything that might serve to indicate this constant bout of egocentricity to a community that continued to look to him for leadership. Ben Tallmadge was, at present, in the process of bringing a class action on behalf of a soccer team who saw their lives interrupted by their unknowing participation in a clinical study, who saw their lives altogether shattered when such came to serve as evidence in an investigation he headed whilst still employed by the NYPD. Were he to follow his doubts around Cicero to their logical end, he knew he stood to loose the trust others reluctantly placed in him to bring justice on their behalf. He knew that such would make it seem as though his interest in this pursuit were purely interests of self-image and projection, and in his heart, he knew this to be his truth.

He never spoke to Cicero; never greeted him with more than a nod.

He spoke as little about the matter as he could manage. At work, his partner, assistant and interns sometimes chided him about this absence of interaction – mistaking it for anxiety around the child he and his partner were expecting. At home, Caleb had no context for such doubts and as such did nothing to address them.

But Cicero Ingram always seemed present. He had gone through confirmation at Ben’s church, attended Bible study with Jordan Akinbode’s parents each Wednesday and took place in every charity action and inter-faith event the congregation held. Ben could hear him playing soccer from his houseboat on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and on Sunday when he did not have an interfering fixture with his school-side. His picture took prominence in Jordan’s office, the was another of him in Mary and John’s living room, the same that hung on one of the walls of Strong Tavern beside a jersey signed by all them members of the youth squad from the time they had won the league cup the year before. He was smiling in these images and Ben felt that if the boy knew that his eyes would so often find themselves upon him, this grin would surely have since faded into a frown.

When he spoke of cold conflict with his father, as he occasionally was forced into after service for the good Reverend was not one to allow wounds to silently fester within his congregation, Ben was always quick to concur with the reproach offered of his lack of action, agreeing that Cicero Ingram would likely benefit from an invitation to address the mental lesions left to him and his two closest friends by their first encounter. If the boy could not release his anger - and how could he be expected to – addressing its source might open him to challenging it more productively than refusing to shake his hand when their families sat near to one another in church.

Ben, of course, knew this all to be true, but though he longed for absolution in the eyes of others, he feared forgiving himself should he ever find the words that might allow Cicero the same.

He had not been part of the assault, but the fact remained that when he had been put in charge of the Arnold Investigation, men under his leadership detained three minors with undo violence.

The fact remained that Ben had been left with no option but to personally arrest them all the same amidst the trauma they suffered under orders he would have never given.

The worst of it, Ben had considered ever since, had been his initial, overwhelming fury over the optics – the ‘suspects’ happened to all be children of colour at a time when Black Lives Matter was grabbing every headline not dedicated to the missing senator, the Republican Primary, or the reclusive Scottish earl who had recently announced his engagement to an American barmaid.

In turning in his resignation immediately upon seeing to it that the officers involved in the beatdown and ensuing sexual assault were abruptly dismissed from service, Ben further resented the realities of their family situations, half-wishing that they had come from broken homes rather than their sharing the surnames of the ADA (as was the case of Theodosia Burr) the ADIC of the FBI’s Manhattan Field Office (as Phillip Hamilton did), or, as it applied to Cicero, happened to have a father-figure in one of the best trial-lawyers in the city. Ben’s illustrious career with the NYPD had thus been ended in an afternoon by public mood and the very power its force was more often against. It was justice at its most unjust-

And the worst of it was, Ben had initially seen himself as it’s true victim.

It was not until he had packed up his desk and was waiting on the curve for his ride to show that it even began to occur to him that the full of his concern ought to have been with the girl and boys who had since been taken to hospital.

He continued to feel as sickened by the thoughts he had never shared as he did with the action he later saw them take, turning a blind eye when it came to his attention that Cicero meant to bring about an end to the affair that he could not and would not have been able to even if his rank had not been compromised. He let the child engage in something that could come as a compromise to his entire future when responsibility ought instead to have fallen on his shoulders.

That Cicero had called him came as a shock, though most of what he had to say had not.

“Everything alright?” his paralegal asked hours after work ended as the two split a bottle of wine in her living room, far grander than his own despite a pay discrepancy that Ben realised as his eyes fell everywhere in the space save for his assistant was another injustice he perpetuated, however well-off Mary Woodhull otherwise found herself by proximity to other men. He had gone into business with Jordan for a single purpose, but soon found this susceptible to economic reality, opening their offices to smaller cases for the purpose of keeping the lights on. Mary had spent years working public relations at a sizable charity, her childhood dreams of practicing law decided by two lines on a pregnancy test as an undergrad and further denied to her after leaving UNICEF upon getting acceptance to Columbia when illness had damaged the speech centre of her son’s brain and all that had been left of her savings and the profit from the sale of her house had to be invested in his future rather than her own. It was a shame, for Mary would have made an excellent trial lawyer as her work in the office proved. Upon completion of a nine-month paralegal course from an online institution of questionable accreditation, she had done nearly all of the work on the class action while he and Jordan argued small civil matters in order to sign her miniscule paycheque. It worked out for the firm, for Akinbode, Tallmadge & Associates would never be able to operate had Mary Woodhull the qualifications to actualise their name’s ambition, but it still seemed sorry that she earned little more than the baristas at the corner coffeeshop who regularly misspelt names on the cups had since become a staple of their shared office décor.

For reasons of pride Ben admired but would never truly understand, Mary refused the financial help of her significant other when it came to the son and daughter she had from a previous relationship. Perhaps this had to do with the resentment between John and her ex, perhaps with the fact that the hostilities had nothing to do with her directly. Under ordinary circumstance this would not have been a bother, but the same morning she asked if he could help her with the children as John and Abe were both in Scotland, Anna and Edmund who lived in the penthouse over theirs had been overseas for weeks and had taken the team of nannies with them and their boy, Peggy and Aberdeen were both working the Saturday night shift at Strong Tavern out in Setauket – and even if they were available she was of late hesitant to call; she and Abe had decided to remain wed long after their relationship had ended that they might adopt the child Peggy had found herself carrying after a night of regret, a little girl who was beginning to both look and - as the result of her exposure of John and Edmund’s accents – _sound_ so much like Dr John André that Peggy found it emotionally straining to be around her; Aberdeen, who had come to the United States to be an au pair to Thomas, presently pregnant herself and too often ill to contend with Jeanne, who had been sent home sick on Thursday, or the infant twins Mary had born the little girl’s namesake at midsummer, who between them did little more than fill their diapers with the goat’s milk they had been fed since a round of antibiotics had made breastfeeding an impossibility (and after two weeks of seeing the animal substitute bring the children who had been born prematurely within range of a healthy weight for their age, adapted as a rule.) But it stank as Ben himself could admit. He hoped when his child was born, he would find a formula that did not cause his stomach to turn pouring it into a bottle or disposing of it after it had been processed.

Not that he minded helping out.

Not that he could not see that he needed the practice.

But none of this was what weighed on his mind.

“You’ve been … off all day,” Mary observed as diplomatically as possible.

No, Ben thought. He had been a dick.

When he had returned to the office, he had slammed the door and dawn closed the blinds on all of his own windows, unwilling to acknowledge or engage his partner Jordan Akinbode, their shared paralegal, the young woman whom he had impregnated by masturbating into a cup in a sterile fertility clinic, or her girlfriend who had settled her student debt by doing the same for Mary two years prior, both of whom he had offered unpaid afternoon internships that they might get some work experience while completing their law degrees at Columbia. He had barely spoke to Mary since arriving with her at her flat afterwards, undone as he had been finding the topic of his conversation with Cicero who had been babysitting the morning though unable to answer any of Mary’s questions about how the girls had been, the girl’s arms crossed over her body as to protect as much of herself as possible from his perceived gaze. Frightened as she had been by his presence, Thea had been reluctant to leave, perhaps in the perception that it was up to her to protect the younger girls. _‘You know,’_ she said when her father arrived, _‘your kid is going to have a lot more in common with me than he or she will with you. How the fuck you gonna sit there and lie that they should trust the police?’_ Ben did not have an answer for her. He had barely said a word since.

“You should have a raise,” he told Mary slightly out of context, “And Aberdeen and Peggy salaries for all that they do. I’ll speak with Jordan about it on Monday though I doubt he will be object; we are in a far better position than we were starting out.”

“Where is this coming from?” Mary asked. “I’m doing fine financially and otherwise; and the girls work ten hours a week between them and earn enough from advertising revenue on their podcast to shop at Barneys. None of us are at the firm hoping to get rich.”

“The girls live in a shit flat out in Setauket.”

“Where they don’t have to pay rent,” Mary reminded gently.

“They have to take a couple of shifts at the tavern downstairs to fulfil the arrangement they made with Anna; I just don’t think it is the best environment for the baby.”

“Well as you seem to think the firm is doing,” Mary responded as though she had reason to question his figures, “you would not enable them a posher post code with a new paygrade, I’m not arguing that they _don’t_ deserve it, but most likely the two would spend the next six months continue to prove that they can out-dress the rest of us and then come April panic that the increase puts them into a new tax bracket.”

“Well Simcoe could help with that, I’m sure, should it come to it,” he muttered. Mary frowned and refilled her glass, not extending him the same courtesy gesture. “I didn’t mean that,” Ben said. “I’m sure everything your husband engages in these days is above board -”

“He’s not my husband,” Mary said sharply, “and Effie Gwillim - who is still the primary shareholder if not the Chair - has him publish a full list of expenses each quarter. She has made her position precarious enough with the whole ridiculous fight she started with other leaders of industry that she could not allow for even the suggestion of mismanagement,” she sighed as she took another sip. “And it seems - as ever - I am the only one to profit from other people’s pain; John, who I will give you came to his position through corrupt means – not his own, mind, but corrupt means all the same - is now without question one of the most integrable CEOs in the Fortune 500 when everyone else is given daily reasons to fear their workers even more than they did the morning after Chiara Agnelli succumbed to her injuries. Edmund is now hosting this ball at the expense of that poor girl who will take control of a large percentile of the shares that once belonged to his family directly, in part – John thinks, in hopes of reminding her Tarleton relatives that the offices they now occupy were purchased on a Hewlett loan of sorts. And if Clayton approves the expansion as a result, well, I can go back to worrying about what colour marble I want to redo the bathroom with and the empty assaults on my partner’s honour as a manger will reduce itself to those who relieve themselves in it such as yourself.”

John Graves Simcoe had established the base of his fortune and helped Edmund Hewlett reclaim his own via insider trading tips the latter had happened upon during the initial sweep of Whitehall on his order, which a French liaison officer let slip on orders from a Paris looking to profit from the economic upheaval Arnold’s disappearance invited. When Ben discovered this over the course of the larger inquiry, the relevant authorities showed little more than a courtesy interest in prosecution, giving the Directeur Général de la Police nationale - likely the architect of all of it – close to complete control over a hearing that happened behind closed doors. By that point, Ben had ceased believing in a symmetry between justice and law for reasons more personal, serving to remind him that his heart was perhaps no purer than the one which no one would accuse Joseph Fouché of having. There was some proof of this in the fact that he had since befriend a number of his suspects and could reasonably tolerate many of the others.

The summer prior, to which Mary alluded saw an element of the artificial peace created by Interpol’s designed incompetence destroyed by a single headline over an incident that would have been unrelated were it not for a series of marriage contracts arranged by various Hewlett siblings years before anyone thought to speak of inequality in terms not directly related to race, or in non-election years whatsoever. A soccer team in Turin had purchased a player from Madrid for an unprecedented sum, and weeks later when the general manager of the former visited an auto factory her family also owned, disgruntled workers turned to violence when the found their voices were not being heard by someone whose surname negated her stated inability to do anything by way of affording them a raise or the FIAT brand the same kind of investment the Agnellis had been willing to spend on Cristiano Ronaldo. Chiara died later in hospital from the injuries she received and when a number of workers were let go in response though their direct involvement remained unproven, other factories went of strikes of solidarity leading to further strains within the European Parliament between the Italians trying to negotiate a sum for the government’s continued short-term survival, the Germans who always argue in favour of anything that would see their tax-payers suffer, suspecting erroneously that such would eliminate strictly twentieth-century vocabular from the domestic and foreign press as it was used in their reference, and the representatives of other member states who were wary about committing to another emergency measure that might open their re-elections to the prospect of contest.

In the midst of all of this turmoil, Effie Gwillim, who in name held the majority of the company bearing that of the Hewletts which in turn John Graves Simcoe had caused to truly prosper once more, had either written or approved a headline in the tabloid that she had inherited from her father at birth that caused a small uproar with wide ripples. _‘Execution by FIAT’_ might have been seen as little more than a distasteful pun that targeted sympathies already shared by The Daily Mail’s principle audience of Britons forced in a century of austerity to express their national sense of superiority by inward-leaning policy rather than colonisation and exploitation, but for the fact that it happened that one of the Tarleton brothers had lost his wife in the uprising, the family’s single male heir had lost his mother, and it did not conform to the character of anyone in the extended family to accept a slight without issuing injury in kind. Liverpool’s City Council voted unanimously against a proposal Simcoe had presented to them for expansion and encouraged further dissonance by funding the wages of the workers who were prepared to go on strike at all five of the sites Hewlett Incorporated operated within Merseyside until their demand of Gwillim stepping down as Chairman of the Board was met.

Her threats that Banastre’s daughters in whose interest she officially acted would have less to inherit should she give into demands were met with Clayton’s counter that they would be left with nothing should she stay, and at this rate neither would she. Liverpool was hardly reliant of Hewlett investment for alone his economic policies ensured that the void that would be created by her threats of pulling out of contract would quickly and easily be filled by competitors to whom she would likewise be handing her best workers. Gwillim made a weak attempt to discredit the competition, again through the medium of journalism, which landed her several charges of liable when such threatened to disrupt the market.

After stepping down under pressure, she had taken a final swing at the family only to see it backfire on what little remained of her social prospects. Gwillim had accused the MP of having an affair most illicit with his young ward as her mother lay dying, to which The Duchess of Hamilton had been first to respond, revoking the editor’s invitation to the ball her sister-in-law was reading to throw the same girl in celebration of her birth, making promises that the editor would never again enjoy extended company – and as the duchess has assured, further cancelations followed in the coming hours.

Edmund Hewlett’s other sister - Effie’s former best friend - who was technically a still Lady in accordance with her husband’s rank-without-title though she ceased to enjoy royal status as the result of the same union, took things a step further and swore to the editor that were she not to vacate her London residence by the end of the week she would not live long enough to be able to regret it.

Her relationship with the man she had been seeing until that point ended the same morning on the same grounds and Effie returned to her aunt’s stately home somewhere in the countryside where she evidently did little more than swear she had been right where the world had come together to make her suffer for her wrongs and attend religious services with the fervour of someone needing a new outlet for an overwhelming sense of self-righteousness. But still, as Mary pointed out, Gwillim remained a member of the board and though her instance of keeping everything transparent - partially as result of and response to her recent missteps – Simcoe enjoyed an overestimation of his competence by comparison.

Ben bit his lip considering implications and equivalency. After leaving the force, he had started attending church regularly as well and had never felt further from God. He still threatened children as much in his silence as Gwillim managed to with her words.

“I didn’t intend offence,” he murmured. “I’m just … I’m lost for options at correcting past wrongs. When I was part of the force it was easier to compartmentalise, but the way things stand such is becoming increasingly difficult.”

“You don’t always need to – compartmentalise, I mean. What you got, Tallboy?”

“Don’t call me that. That is Jordan’s nickname for me and I,” he shifted abruptly, I’m a liar,” he told her. “I don’t think I’m ready for a child, in fact I know myself not to be.”

“That is what this is about? Ben you were great with the kids, I know they can be a bit trying but -”

“It is not that,” he interrupted. “I love you kids, and I agree with your assessment that I could use the practice, but … I’m going to have a baby who is growing to grow up facing struggles to which I can’t relate, quite the opposite, in fact being that I once,” Ben paused, swallowed. “Cicero called me this afternoon.”

“Oh. Oh! What did he -”

“Exactly what you would expect.”

* * *

Abraham Woodhull was a liar and a coward. He had wasted most of his twenties in the pursuit of empty gains in order to avoid the demands of adulthood. He erred in his attempts at correction and could not recognise that the office he had qualified himself for by means as traitorous as the administration he presently served did noting by way of righting all of the wrongs he had forced his ex-wife to suffer in their marriage, and as though that would not have been reason enough to despise the man, John Graves Simcoe found himself thinking the evening through, Abe also happened to be friends with Banastre Tarleton which showed the MP to be annoying on levels that Simcoe might have never otherwise actively considered.

He did not like the party or the fact that his own job title forced his attendance and had spent the better part of it seeking out small, dark spaces the way vermin did, or so his godfather’s dreadful wife informed him in what was meant to be an encouragement on his social capacity. Simcoe, disliking his employer all the more for this charade and all of the guests -including, to an extent, his own relatives who had not had their invitations revoked- for the business they sought in their attendance had himself instead found company of his girlfriend’s son who had few children his own age to play with this evening and some level of difficulty befriending those who were present. Thomas Woodhull had a pronounced speech impediment, and children to whom he was a stranger were given to imitation – hurtful if meant in fun. Adults, for their part, simply shouted thinking him deaf or otherwise mentally disabled, thinking such appropriate to a situation they only understood in the context of comparative gratitude for their own children’s health and well-being.

It was a mistake to bring the boy here, and not one that Simcoe had made. He had grown up with a hearing impairment that was only diagnosed later in life, resulting in him understanding what it was to live with the misunderstanding and mockery he watched Thomas endure and struggle to navigate. Simcoe was constantly reminded that he spoke in a pitch unbefitting a man and found the behaviours he developed of necessity prior to his hearing device detrimental to his own success in society, he stood too close and watched others too intently as they spoke in hopes of understanding that which was otherwise lost to him. He remained deaf to nuance and struggled with small talk.

He absolutely loathed gatherings such as this, whatever their grounds.

While he hoped the boy whom he happened to think of as ‘his’ would one day be able to enjoy himself among strangers, Thomas was nine years old, frightened and made more foreign by the struggles he had communicating himself at a normal speed. Simcoe had spotted him sitting alone at a table, lying that he did not want to play with the other, younger children because they were ‘babies’ and ‘girls’ and thus ‘stupid’ – points Simcoe could not argue if he viewed the situation from his would-be stepson’s perspective, so instead he simply nodded his understanding and asked Thomas if he wanted to play with him instead.

The two spent the better part of the evening walking the halls, Simcoe telling Thomas the kinds of stories where knights were brave, princesses kind and conflicts easily resolved by taking a stand, partially hoping he might inspire the boy not to shrink against adversity - tomorrow, if not tonight.

They met Thomas’ father in the hall of one of the guest wings when Thomas said he wished to retire, the argument that was bound to ensue delayed a few minutes for the boy’s sake as both fathers tucked him in and said good night. Banina Tarleton – one of the ‘stupid girls’ Thomas had let make him feel unwanted was being particularly naughty about having herself been taken to the nursery when her half-sister got to stay up ‘until midnight’ and continued to pester Thomas about the time, how old he was, why he was tired, if he had seen the cake, where he had gone off to, if he wanted to play, if he could read her a story, if he minded if they left the light on so she could read one to him instead. Thomas was annoyed, to be sure, but it seemed that he had made himself more or less accepted, which gave Simcoe a peace he had not anticipated he might find, perhaps his stepson had not been complaining about his company to shirk from his own deficit. Perhaps the problem was not that he struggled to speak, but rather that a five-year-old-girl in a fancy dress struggled not to.

He would need to talk to him about being nicer to people who had given him no true grounds for conflict, but this conversation, he saw, could happen in the morning.

But then, maybe there would be no need.

As Simcoe stood up to leave, little Banina took her book and crawled with it into Thomas’ bed adjacent to her own, explaining that she could not _read_ it exactly, so she would have to show him the pictures because they were quite nice. Her godfather had brought it for her as a present even though it was Marie’s birthday tonight and hers was first in December because he wanted her to learn German because that is what they spoke in Hannover where he lived and did they think German was terribly hard to learn? Did he think she could learn it by her birthday? “So,” the girl began to explain, “a donkey goes for a walk and then he meets a doggie.”

“Picture is nice,” Thomas gave to the child’s great delight.

“There is a kitty, too! And a roo-ster. What is your favourite animal? My mummy won’t let me have any pets, but Marie has two puppies – Mou and Pep and Uncle George – that is my godfather who gave me this book … ‘March-en’,” she tried from the cover, “he has a _monkey_ -”

“Just read the story,” Thomas yawned.

“Okay, so they walk for a while and then they meet a cat on the road.”

“Goodnight, guys,” Simcoe smiled.

“Night.” “Good night!”

When the door was closed, he felt for his phone in his breast pocket, intent on calling Mary to let her know her son had made something of a friend.

Before he could share the cute moment or even enjoy it, Abe began as Simcoe might have expected, “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“What precisely?” Simcoe inquired.

“Thomas is my son, if you are going to take him on a tour, do you think it not prudent to tell me first?” Abe demanded, claiming, “I spent half the evening worried sick.”

“Then I ask your pardon, Woodhull. From where I was standing you seemed too preoccupied with everyone and everything else to take much notice of your boy. I didn’t wish to bother you with burden.”

“But Thomas is _mine_ to bear.”

“Sure,” Simcoe nodded slowly, “every other weekend. Tell me, when he visits you in DC, do you prove yourself to be such an attentive parent?”

“Do you think that your constant helicoptering is of any benefit to the boy? If he never has to speak for himself, he will never learn how to -”

“Quite a critique coming from a man who consistently fails to act until the plot has all but escaped him,” Simcoe gave sarcastically. “Tell me, for now you have my curiosities aroused, did you harbour any incentive whatsoever that went beyond the fulfilment of your own basic needs of hunger and rest before finding yourself without any qualifications that could lead to career prospects, served divorce papers by the woman who had been supporting you since you knocked her up in college, getting called out by a crippled colonel with a surname synonymous with shooting men as the lay down their arms in surrender whilst you merely by happenstance held the man the entire world was looking for hostage? Actually … taking all of that into account, does anything serve to motivate you nowadays, beyond, of course, your misguided want to challenge me when I’ve taken it upon myself to look after your boy when you otherwise show no great inclination towards such acts?”

“Never presume -” Abe began, adjusting posture slightly and shifting his balance to the balls of his feet in a way he seemed to feel was intimidating. Simcoe studied him without expression which seemed to anger the little man more, but before he could inquire as to what he was not meant to presume - not because he was curious or had any respect for however Abraham Woodhull assessed a situation over which he had taken charge but rather because he wished to see the small man who had filled himself with hot air deflate when he parted his lips – their argument was interrupted before it could end, as it seemed most of their interactions of later were.

“Mister Woodhull? Coach … can, can we maybe talk?” Cicero asked.

“What’s wrong?” Simcoe shifted, looking beyond Abe to the boy. He felt his stomach turn with shame as he considered how distant from the role model he aspired to be for the children he coached he could prove himself and hoped the hall had been too dimly lit to leave an impression.

“Did you get the affidavits?” Abe asked. Simcoe’s unblinking eyes shifted between the two, struggling to follow.

“No … I – I don’t think I can even if they still exist,” cicero stammered. “I was kind of counting on Arthur to be here, ‘cuz like, he and Marie closer than I’ve ever been to her, but uh, since a lot of his friends from high school _are_ here I kept trying to steer the conversation back toward him, right – see if any of them knew anything about the documents even if they didn’t actively know if like you said -”

“Excuse me, what documents?” Simcoe interjected.

“The ones you and everyone involve in Dr André’s research were forced to sign the night of the wedding, after Miss Peggy shot Robert Rogers when he tried to take Miss Aberdeen and Mr Freddy as hostages after losing Senator Arnold,” Cicero explained.

“I knew nothing about this,” Simcoe answered, his fingers beginning to twitch at his sides.

Cicero caught something in the response or the tone in which it was spoken that seemed to cause him greater unease, which had hardly been Simcoe’s intent. “Go on,” he bade him.

“Well, Arthur and me, we took ‘em … just the whole pile. Didn’t read ‘em or nothin’ because Jordan was on about not being able to sue if everyone signed away their rights so we just – you were in interrogation most of the evening but a few of the other adults knew about it so we … we went looking and grabbed what we found, pretending to be playing a game of hide and seek with Thomas who were all like tired in that little kid way where he has more energy and can’t sit still.”

“I remember,” Abe said as though he wanted to remind everyone once more that he was the boy’s father.

“Thea then sewed them into the lining of Arthur’s dinner jacket because his lawyer -well, Sir Banastre’s lawyer- got him out a few hours before the rest of us were allowed to leave and we’ve not spoken a word of it since. I didn’t want to ask over text because … I mean, isn’t every day you steal property from the federal government and man,” he threw up his arms in fear or frustration, “I got college applications coming up and shit – oh,” he stopped suddenly, “sorry. Don’t tell my mom I said that.”

“It is alright, it is alright,” Simcoe said, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “continue, please.” 

“Just … Mr Woodhull wanted me to see if I could get my hands on them because well … he thinks there might be something in a few of them at least detailing how the method was actually implemented, and he -”

“I think that André’s study might be being implemented at scale,” Abe explained.

“What do you mean ‘at scale’?” Simcoe demanded, shifting his attention back to the weasel. “I don’t care what you mean,” he corrected, “How could you, how could any of you leave your paranoias to a child to bear? And to that end, you meant to stand here and argue that my attentions cause some sort of detriment -”

“All three branches. I have grounds to believe that John André’s research -”

“You need to leave,” Simcoe warned, feeling Cicero beginning the shake as though he might break into tears. “Now.”

“John, listen – this isn’t crazy,” Abe tried to defend. “I work in the Pentagon and I -”

“I’m not particularly interested at the moment how valid your suspicions are or what drives them. Your instinct in all of this was to ask a child to travel across the world to sort this for you, same as you seem to have looked at the boy to get you out of this mess in the first place -”

“ _Us_ out of this mess,” Abe corrected, spitting, “you were hardly an innocent -”

“ _I’m_ certainly not guilty of pressing my suspicions on the young and impressionable and making unreasonable demands of them.”

“I’m happy to help,” Cicero tried to defend, “I just … I don’t think I can. Even if we might have still been able to get them, like if Arthur didn’t destroy them immediately out of fear of implementing himself which, I mean, he probably did because he isn’t _stupid_ , I – I asked too many questions and …”

“Hey, hey, come, let’s sit,” Simcoe said, leading him into one of the adjacent rooms as he mouthed ‘Go.’ to Abe at the door, an order the weasel thankfully had the sense to obey.

“Do you remember when Thea,” Cicero began to choke, “when we were all arrested after we found Arnold’s burner and then I didn’t want to give it to the cops because of the compromising pictures of Peggy he had that weren’t even real but … but then they, the cops they -”

“You don’t have to say it,” Simcoe nodded, taking a seat beside Cicero on the bed that this may feel less of an interrogation after he had turned on the lights to find the child’s eyes red from crying. He must have relived this experience every time he shut them, Simcoe thought, finding his jittering fingers collect themselves into a fist. Was Ben Tallmadge involved in this scheme as well? Was Jordan? Was _Mary_? He hazarded to think of the implications of what he asked and began to question why he was only learning about this now, finding his answer in the fact that it seemed too late to make a difference.

“Yeah I _should have_ said something though because I – I put Marie into a not entirely dissimilar situation and I just – when it hit me I just couldn’t,” Cicero choked, “it was like everything that was beginning to feel okay suddenly wasn’t anymore and it never was and I only went on pretending because of some bullshit sense of collective interest, which … I mean. I fucked everything up. I couldn’t stop seeing the cops under Mr Tallmadge’s command back when he was a DCI and they was forcing themselves of Thea and her screaming and me and Pip not being able to do shit about it, so I called him just … just screaming that he just needed to go – go kill himself in some hotel out in the Midwest like André did because it was already too late with the case because the fucking US Military was already a step ahead of us and that worked out so well for everyone back when Washington was in control of it -”

“Sorry, was Ben in on Abe’s … scheme of getting you to -” Simcoe tried to clarify.

“He knew that I took them in the first place. I don’t think he knew shit about what happened afterwards though, like how we got them out of the station and he never asked. Mr Woodhull doesn’t seem to have said anything about … _this_ so,” he shifted, “What if the phone is being tapped?”

“Then the officer tasked with going though Tallmadge’s communications and correspondence is to be pitied,” Simcoe tried to assure him. “The man is a bore and oh-so-pretentious besides. Plus, I find it entirely unlikely that he would not know about it that _were_ the case, he was a copper after all, and they protect their own.”

“Um-hm,” Cicero nodded, staring intently at the floor.

“But what happened with Marie to put you in this state?”

“Uh – you know how girls be, like they friends until they can think of any small excuse to openly hate one another?”

“You became that excuse?” Simcoe guessed.

“Not exactly. I – like I said, I kept asking about Arthur when I first arrived and then his ex-girlfriend - after about an hour of my pressing - dropped whatever act of patience she was putting on and I mean, I sort of _do_ see it from her perspective, from her side of things the relationship was defined loosely if at all – they dated for a while but then he moved away and she moved on and they were more like friends who became ‘friends with benefits’ when it was geographically convenient, going long-distance whey were both bored and had exhausted every app that could serve as a late night distraction. Anyway, she – Kitty - had every reason to think he held her in the same general regard, especially given that he um … I don’t know if you can call it ‘cheating’ exactly ‘cuz she knew what was going on but it was certainly a betrayal all the same being that he either slept with or got found chasing all of her girlfriends both sides of the Irish Sea.

“She says she don’t care but – and maybe she wouldn’t if he self-actualized the relationship even just a bit, but she was off living her own life entering ‘society’ or whatever, even got crowned Debutante of the Year – which is confusing,” he said after a pause of consideration, “because it is not a crown you’re given like a prom but instead a sword that gets used to cut a cake for a long-dead queen-”

“The Queen Charlotte Ball, I know … my,” he paused, wondering how he should define it or if he even needed to,” my kind of God-sister came out, too.”

“Right, and I don’t know how heavily that played into Arthur’s seemingly spontaneous decision to ask for her hand in marriage but long story short - she turned him down, he showed up at her ball to press the issue, absolutely humiliated her in front of all of ‘Society’ and she has barely been invited to a party since. And I mean had I known _any_ of this I wouldn’t have kept bring him up, but -sick of being reduced to this one role she no longer plays - Kitty called out everyone else for falling for the same line, and then Marie were all like _‘not with me_ ’ and it came out that she was a virgin and no one would let it go.

“After a round of heckling – something I know I should have moved to shut down then and there but I thought, _‘I don’t really know any of these people, but if that is how they are talking to a_ girl _about not having gotten any, if I were to admit the same I’d be laughed out of town_ ’ – and I really am sorry and would be regardless of however else this shit went down that that was the impulse I acted on,” had added, perhaps sensing Simcoe’s shared disappointment in him, “but Kitty and this other girl Rachel, who is like twenty and a duchess which outranks Ms Anna, they both start going on about how Marie should be having as much _‘hard, emotionally detached sex as she can possibly fit into her diary.’_

“And Marie is - even in her better moments - incorrigible and highly, _highly_ competitive so not five minutes later when we moved on to something else, this guy Talleyrand come over because she half-invited him to join her for a drink earlier in the evening, and then she went up to him the way she do – talk about her theory that powerful men have no interest in taking women who demonstrate anything of an understanding for the world to bed, and he moves on her – _‘there is certain some truth to that but mature for your age as I’m confident you consider yourself and bright as you have likely always been told you are, to speak in such a manner at your age confesses naivety rather than wit, rendering me a poor judge of the question you pose in this specific scenario.’_

“So, she then goes, _‘Let me than phrase another, do you want me to show you where the Queen sleeps when she is in residence?’_ and at this I dropped my glass, Marie turned, laughed, gave me a kiss on the cheek and asked that I ‘make her excuses’ – like she had any, and I should have followed, I wanted to follow to stop her from doing something she might later regret ‘cuz this guy is old enough to be her father, but suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about Thea. I just froze, I don’t even know for how long but then someone touched my shoulder and asked if I was alright, broke me out of it and I remember where I was and what was happening and what I had just failed to do for Mr Woodhull – for everyone really. I called Mr Tallmadge and then found you and -”

“The Queen’s Chambers?” Simcoe verified. “We are not done, you and I, we are going to finish this – but I have to go take care of this first.”

* * *

Kitty Pakenham had awoken with a headache and a bad taste in her mouth on a morning she had been angered to remember was Friday.

It was seven, she reasoned, for that was the time to which her alarm was set and when she reached for her phone, she had every intention of hitting snooze until she noticed on the lock screen that she had a number of missed texts and nearly a thousand notifications from Instagram which struck her as odd as she could not remember posting more than three pictures the night before.

She sat up abruptly and looked around the room, breathing a sigh of relief that she managed to find her way back to her own bed and opened the app, curious at what the fuss was over – even though she had a fair few followers, she largely avoided hashtags to keep her pictures from coming up in a Google image search as she had been taught to do at finishing school, and, though no longer welcome in Society in the strictest sense, Kitty still found herself mimicking practices that asked no extension of effort from her.

The night before she had gone to a questionable venue in one of the city’s less fashionable post codes with a few friends from Uni for a laugh – evidently the goal keeper from one of the local clubs (Kitty could not remember which) had a side hustle spinning and, while Kitty herself was neither particularly invested in the English Game nor the EDM scene, since being spotted in an issue of FourFourTwo that had come on to newsstands a few days prior, she had received several invitations from various classmates to come along, and frankly it had been too long since she had a pint in extended company, or been afforded much opportunity to discuss anything beyond who-wore-what to a party that had so abruptly ended for her that she struggled to remember much of anything beyond the conversation she had overheard while standing outside the Queen’s doors.

She had wound up at her fourth-choice university when shortly before the start of term it became abundantly clear that nothing short of a fresh start would do her, and while she reasonably liked the city, school had for the first two months shown her little different of that which she turned down in Dublin and in the south of England, though blessedly on perceptions that since the end of October proved an easier correction -

She was no longer a ‘snob’ or ‘posho’ (or whatever demeaning term the middle classes seemed to throw at anyone with halfway decent posture and a basic skincare regiment) she was ‘the’ girl who had gotten away with wearing something she had found at Oxfam and restyled slightly to the party of the century. That the shoes she had bought for the same event had cost her more than her car had somehow made no impression that was not deemed equally worthy of aspiration.

Kitty found herself as capable as she had always been at being the girl of the moment - more so now that she got to do so more on her own terms.

Then, the article had come out and she was forced again to be more than what she knew herself to be, though this far she had been finding knowledge easier to fain than a smile when it came to sport or anything, really. She borrowed opinions she had heard repeated in passing _(‘Nelson is arguably the greatest English player of his generation, but one hopes that he’ll eventually learn that football is a team sport and bloody pass every so often!’_ ), experiences that she had had a hand in initiating but which were not, strictly speaking, her own ( _‘You are making too much of this! All French stereotypes aside, the most debauched thing we engaged in was a conversation about how to get the most out of marketing venue.’_ ) and citations of indisputable fact that worked in any context (‘ _Sorry, but_ _André Massena is the only viable contender - even if he is at a shit side, he averages more than three goals a game which is bloody insane and plays on through every tackle: torn hamstring? sprained ankle? S’alright, Coach, I’ve another, I can keep going.’_ ) It was _so_ easy, in fact, that Kitty could not help but to question if her fellow LJMU classmates in the design department knew all that much about the game themselves, or if they were so adapt at reading style-cues that they had caused themselves to be blind to context (her short hair suddenly indicating her as ‘sporty’ rather than as another ‘Basic’ who spent too much of her time scrolling the trash-news and socials not to copy niche influences like Rose de Tascher.)

The picture she had posted of herself holding her hand over her ear with a cheeky smirk and Jordan Pickford -whom she realised she would have to google in the next hour before class – looked to be last night’s clear winner with 107 notes, the photo she had taken of herself and her uni-friends standing in line outside the club had gotten 73 and the vodka-martini that explained the headache a grand total of 12. The rest had come from her ex, whom - Kitty realised with something approaching glee after spending roughly two minutes screaming raw into her pillow – had likely woken up with more of a headache than that which she was currently experiencing.

With this thought she roused herself from her sheets and turned on the coffee maker in her flat’s small kitchen before going to the bathroom and bemoaning the fact that she had failed to remove both her makeup and her contacts upon getting home last night and that as such she would have to go to class with glasses and visibly dry skin, which should have been problem enough for one day, certainly more than Kitty felt she was due.

Three hours, a pot of coffee, two classes, a quiz she had forgotten she was meant to write and an additional trip to Starbucks midway through it all, Kitty found herself in her tutor’s office wishing she had ignored the alarm and spent the day in bed.

“It is an amazing opportunity,” the man tried to impress upon her. Normally when Kitty sat in this room, she tried to guess at his age. Certainly, he seemed ‘too old’ for the faded pink hair-dye and ‘too young’ for his colourful suspenders, but what he had to say was far too serious for Kitty to actively consider all the ways in which he was not.

“With every respect, Sir,” she answered, bracing herself on the chair in which she sat, “I’m in the middle of my first semester. Unless Dame Margaret Graves is particularly interested in the rudimentary basics of pattern drafting, I cannot imagine I have much of anything to offer her – or Vogue UK – by way of conversation,” she half-lied. “What I say is not a reflection on the school or the education I’ve received here so far, but don’t you think it within your own interest to offer this opportunity instead to someone in their third year, whose CV includes abroad-study, London Fashion Week and industry experience a _little_ more impressive than my folding shirts at Primark?”

“She asked for you specifically,” her advisor said with a small lift of his shoulders, “you must have made quite an impression at Richmond’s Ball.”

Kitty Pakenham swallowed and closed her eyes. “When?” she asked, wondering when and if she would ever be free of that night.

But the end, it seemed, had already long since found her. It was now hers to meet it.

Her advisor took her rhetorical as affirmation and began giving her details for her diary that she thankfully already had in her phone from several members of her family who served the Royal Navy and upon whose sake she knew and had long known that she would need to accept sooner or later not that the retired admiral create cause against their future prospects because of something Kitty heard his wife say.

All she heard in what was being spoken in the moment was that her own prospects had been fully eradicated by the time she spoke the word ‘murder’ to John Graves Simcoe if not from the time his eyes found her listening from outside the chamber door.

Kitty had spent a large part of the evening in question finding herself reduced to Arthur Wellesley’s Ex, and, after a glass of champagne had made a point of reducing him in turn to the toy-boy he had largely been – largely, but not entirely. Kitty had been head-over-heels for the lad when they lost their virginities to one another and worried that in her bout of audacity when discussing the act she had robbed Marie, who had very few pleasant things in her life of the experience of learning to love without expectation or inhibition. Marie had moved on advice that was only intended in jest on a crippled Frenchmen who had the decency at least to be witty and charming about a situation that was not _decent_ in the slightest – namely, however the night was otherwise named, there was no way that he could have possibly mistaken the girl he suddenly found vying for his attentions for a woman grown.

Kitty heard Marie say something about the Queen’s Chambers, and had been delayed in causing such talk to end by a rather rude comment from Lady Campbell about the alleged virgin clearly having a ‘type’, implying that Marie was in fact fucking her stepfather and confessing her poor taste in news source in the process. She was quick to toss what remained of her bubbly in the girl’s face which resulted in a series of threats that she could not possibly carry out even if Kitty had trusted her to make good on any of them, for as the evening and the incessant discussion of Atty had proven, she was already a persona non grata among her own class.

Turning to find that rather than go upstairs, Marie have found herself intercepted by the Earl and Countess Hewlett and Talleyrand had gotten himself into a discussion with someone Kitty supposed to be an athlete of some merit, she announced to her own satisfaction that they had all been victim to a rather adroit act of jest and were they all not fools for it which won a few cheers and toasts. Kitty’s attention was the called back to the truly bothersome boy whom she had known only from a WhatsApp Group she had set to silent and rarely checked (finding that she was not quite clever or worldly enough to understand the memes being sent on a level that allowed them to be funny.) Cicero seemed in a state of shock and she had done her best to coax him from it, but he had recoiled from her touch and stormed off without much ceremony.

She had taken this as an excuse to leave the little group herself and after a few spins around the ballroom with men she supposed to be dignitaries based on the fact that all three of her dancing partners with vaguely recognisable visages struggled through the steps, Kitty realised that she had not spotted Marie or her would-be-lover in quite some time and made her excuses to the men she left waiting.

Kitty had attended a ball held at Edinburgh Castle during her coming-out and as such had a fair notion of where Her Majesty took to rest whilst in residence, having once entered the room with another debutant to help the girl re-tape her strapless gown to her breasts. She rushed as quickly as one could in red-bottom-stilettos to the adjacent wing and up the stairs, finding the door and finding it locked from the inside.

She had been too late.

She thought to knock despite recognising that she had very little chance of halting her friend from something she was sure to regret, questioning if she even had the right to do so much less the obligation when she heard voices from within most decidedly not speaking words of love in its own language.

 _‘Do you know what you risk being here now, Edmund?’_ Margaret Graves demanded. Kitty, who had spent the better part of her adolescence addicted to the woman and her publication would have recognised that slight nasal anywhere. ‘ _Everyone who buried ‘you’ is downstairs; I should not doubt that they would do so again should you give them the chance.’_ Who – Kitty wondered, had they buried? She bit her lip and knelt until she was level with the key-lock, hoping to glimpse inside. Margaret looked to bee speaking to the Duke of Richmond, whose name was Edward, or so Kitty thought. No, she knew that to be true, if only for the fact that when the Earl of March and Kinrara ascended to the title, he would be known as Edmund, II. Duke of Richmond and they had done Edmund I at school.

‘ _Perhaps I ought to demand it, my children imprison me for crimes committed by the man whose name they have forced upon me whilst your Godson seeks to ruin the world with my money and resources by delving into offshore drilling – the world they seek to build won’t be inhabitable._ ’ Was this then the Earl’s father, the businessman who had died the night his son got married an ocean away? How Kitty wished she had made more of a dedication to the parts of the paper that were not directly interesting, at least once in a while. She hated that she did not have it in her memory if Edmund Hewlett, Sr. had been an environmentalist or if John Graves Simcoe had since his passing taken the company he started in a decidedly different direction. Was he even dead? Why would so many people lie and say he was, was this all to do with money? She would have to find a way of asking Anahita or Susan who seemed to be up on these sorts of things later, discreetly, of course – for talk of finance was impolite, but then she had already managed to assault a Duchess so even if it had been the case as Olivia had tried to assure her and the matter with Arthur had been all but forgotten (which it clearly was not), it was not as if she would be invited to such affairs in the future. Besides, word of her behaviour was bound to get back to her family and they would likely cut her off within the week if they had not already done so, meaning she would need to know a bit more about business as things stood. She tried not to wonder if she would be quizzed at an interview were she to apply for employment in her field of study about anything having to do with the energy sector, but supposed such might be the case as the undisputed Queen of Fashion seemed to have personal stock in such matters. Kitty tried her best to stop her breathing that she might better hear, and thus better understand the cause of conflict.

_‘I’ve never been one for ecology, much because I should think myself to have a mind for debate and the points argued by your faction are so absent of context or construct. You are guilty of trading your daughter, granddaughter and countless very young children in between to your elder brother for his support of proposals that whatever their small social or climatic benefits saw you enriched, often at the cost of societies most vulnerable whose addictions you abided by opening new avenues of trade for your more illicit product. Yeah … Edmund, but you built a few windmills and a sanctuary for all of the migratory birds they killed in the process, so hard to imagine how we didn’t all look the other way. Do you think we would now? Do you think if you went downstairs and announced to the few guests who were not present when you were forced to strip at gun point would not themselves wonder why the trigger was not pulled then and move for their own pistols now? Whatever you hold John and Effie accountable for, you should know that their accomplices were many and would have been far more if the chance had been extended -’_

“Standing guard, are we?” John Graves Simcoe asked, having come upon her suddenly from the shadows, startling with his unusually high voice. “Much as I admire your loyalty, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to interfere any further. I’ve known Marie since she was a toddler, her father for far longer, and believe me when I say he would grow murderous if he knew -”

“What that you killed the Duke of Richmond and replaced him with his brother? You and Effie Gwillim and the Hewletts and everyone else from the sounds of it! What the fuck do you want with Marie?” she demanded at volume, having forgotten what had originally led her to this wing in the confession of a crime that seemed to promise another. “There is no way I would ever, _ever_ let you anywhere near her of any of my friends. You are a murderer,” she hissed, “and I rather think you should leave before you give me further ground for incident.”

Realistically, there was not much she had the power to do as everyone with power seemed to already know what she had overheard. The Gwillim family had influence over the parts of the press they did not own outright, the politicians would protect each other to protect themselves and in this moment, Kitty realised that she had not learned anything in all of her years of Zumba and Hot Yoga that would cause her to physically compete with a man who had ten inches and about a hundred pounds on her petit frame. Arthur had told her once that she could debilitate a man by punching him in the nose, but Kitty had her doubts if she would both be able to reach her target and take off her heels quickly enough to run away before reinforcement came. The only thing she really had working in her favour was years of experience at being pretty, rich, and popular which seemed to intimidate the man before her as much as it had the girls it school when she said in the tone of a title she could no longer rightly claim, “Try me.” He took a step back and Margaret Graves took a step towards the closed door.

‘ _You know, Edmund, what the irony in all this is?_ ’ the Dame continued.

Simcoe continued to speak as though he could not hear and Kitty found herself caught between what seemed a killer and his contractor, having decided to continue hold her ground if he was in fact after Marie for such created the deception that she was inside, perhaps buying her time to re-dress for dinner where there would be witnesses, whatever they were worth, or alternatively be whisked away to Bonne Paris for the rest of the weekend where the only thing she would have to fear was public transport. Kitty rather hoped this was the case.

‘ _You’ll have vengeance on all you hold accountable for your brother’s death and your living demise as soon as you take your last breath and the question of inheritance is opened. Pity … really, that you so lack the courage of your convictions._ ’

Margaret Graves swung open the door without ceremony, greeted her godson and began to size her up, “How much did you hear?” she asked.

“Enough that I’m about to go and pull a fire alarm and strongly advise you – both of you – to leave this place in the chaos of everyone collecting outside.”

“If you did that you would be not better than the sum of your accusations, for the Duke, you see, would have to die in the fire, which would have to exist. He would have to be charred beyond recognition for were he to be found and recognised, a sweet thing like yourself doesn’t want that much blood on your hands.”

“Margaret!” Simcoe warned.

“Then you are going to go downstairs,” Kitty reconsidered, “collect your cohorts and bid adieu – find your own fucking grounds.”

“What is your name, child?” the woman inquired.

“Edmund, maybe,” Kitty gave. “Everyone else’s seems to be.” With that she turned and walked away as calm and with as much confidence as she could manage. She found herself sick as soon as the fresh air hit her face and was taken into a water closet by a well-meaning woman who warned her to be more discreet about her alcohol consumption or eating disorder to which Kitty could only nod. When dinner was served she sat at the table adjacent to the one where Marie sat with her parents and their hosts in a new grown, red to contrast the black and white worn by everyone else in attendance but looking none the less innocent for it. Neither the fashion editor nor the admiral was present, Simcoe had also vacated his seat, and Gwillim, she remembered, had not come to begin with. Lucky bitch.

Six weeks and several attempts on the part of both Graves to make contact with he since, Kitty left her tutor’s office with empty words of thanks, entering her last block a few minutes late explaining the situation as though being invited on the university’s behalf for a weekend at the country residence of Vogue-UK’s long-serving editor were of little more excuse than a particularly long line at the toilets and spent the next seventy minutes or so in a daze before walking home, humming her own dirge. She crawled back into her bed and spent a long while imagining that the was no one else in the world as inadequate as she was sure to prove in facing such a foe. She had done her research (even though no one at Primark, H&M, Asos or anywhere else she had since interviewed cared or had cared to ask) and found out that yes, Edmund Hewlett, the entrepreneur, had invested in and helped develop alternative energy sources, yes, since his alleged death Hewlett Industries had been exploring offshore drilling, no, the Duke of Richmond had not made any state appearances since (allegedly retiring from public from public life that his nephew and heir take on more responsibility after years of absence), and though it was of very little consequence to present politics, Edmund I had in fact been the bloke she remembered from history, but where in England he was known for his legal reforms, in Scotland he was better remember for beheading everyone in his court at a banquet, which Kitty reasoned after finding a podcast on medieval history and letting it lull her to sleep on several occasions, was likely to be a fate she would share for having made herself a part of the conspiracy.

She had not spoken to anyone about what she had overheard and did her best to pretend in public that her concerns, insofar as people could be said to take note, were fully mundane – her parents had in fact cut her off, which Kitty did not protest, admitting that she had in fact been horrid to Lady Campbell and had no regrets about having conducted herself in such fashion. Though she remained sorry for the excuse that had created the opportunity to stain the woman’s face and gown with champagne, she was happy to have it now serve as an explanation for the worries she could not quite voice.

Still, she had all but isolated herself from Society and did not want to travel to Devon on her own. Her friends from university should not be made party to this affair and she would do nothing to cause ruin to the ones with whom she had grown up, at least the ones with whom she remained on speaking terms (a group that presently restricted itself to Olivia, who was too much of a fool to be of any use, and Marie, who was far too clever for her own good, meaning that no good could come of it.)

Kitty felt like crying until it occurred to her that she knew someone who might actually be suited and suitable for such a task as protecting her from the consequence of curiosity and pride.

>> _Hey Atty, are you back in the UK by chance?_ << she wrote, surprised how suddenly elated she felt at his having reached out to her the night prior.

>> _In a matter of speaking._ << he answered almost immediately.

Kitty smiled, then frowned.

>> _I heard about what happened. How are you holding up?_ << she asked as lightly as she might. He did not answer. Maybe she should have skipped this bit altogether.

>> _Where are you? Any chance we can meet up at the weekend?_ <<

>> _None. I’m in Gibraltar. Tomorrow I’m to_

_Accompany a diplomatic mission to the Spanish_

_Crown I’ve just been reassigned, that is all._

_No grounds to worry yourself, love_.<<

Kitty Pakenham sighed and resigned herself to being strong. So she would need to go it alone – what of it? She had managed the situation before and this time she would be facing it with far more context. At any rate, at least she had spared herself from a moment spent with Arthur Wellesley, evidently as vain and self-entitled as he had been before he had been given the chance to retreat from the front line and hide behind his brother Richard’s title and prestige the way he always did when situation called out his cowardice. Diplomatic as he could sometimes prove himself, he clearly was not any more up for the task at hand as she herself. She would be strong, she vowed, because she had to be –

>> _How was the party?_ <<

Arthur asked.

Kitty Pakenham, for the first time since, burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t really have anything to say about this update, so Imma just hit you up with some modern history that wasn’t really significant enough for anyone to remember the details two years after the fact -
> 
> At the time our tale takes place, America was consumed by an admission bribery scandal involving some of their elite universities, the line **photoshopping themselves into water polo teams to fluff their Ivy League applications** is a reference to the most enduring example.
> 
> When Edmund references **the politization of sport in the United States** , he is likely referring to American football players kneeling during the national anthem in protest, which was also present in the public conscious of the time.
> 
> If Marie’s relation of the **offside rule to Iran Contra in terms of complexity** sounds preposterous, your league has yet to implement VAR. Count yourself fortunate.
> 
> Scottish gaffer **Sir Alex Ferguson** coached Man United to unprecedented success both domestically and internationally for like half a century. In retirement he is in fact involved in horse sport, which I doubt would be enough for him to entirely win over the sympathies of any true Liverpool fan but uh … Eddie Hew’s loyalties really do seem to be fickle, don’t they?
> 
> While Chiara Agnelli is a fictional figure (or was briefly in Hide and Seek before becoming a plot device here) there really were **riots and strikes at FIAT following Ronaldo’s Juventus signing.** It never got quite as critical as in this narrative, but the responses from the EU member are pretty much in line with everything that plays out in Brussels, so, you know, I’m okay with the same copy/paste approach as my elected officials.
> 
> Everton and England’s keeper **Jordan Pickford** in the tradition of far too many footballers before him dabbles in DJing. Even though the is fairly well known and says to my mind pretty much everything one would ever want to know about him off-pitch, somehow it was still a scandal when he was found drunk at the darts last year (when it shouldn’t even have come as a surprise … but then there is a very high possibility that I know more about lad culture than the people paid to write about sport.)
> 
> Anyway, that is all I have for now. If I missed anything, do let me know. Thanks as always for reading and take care of yourselves!
> 
> Up next: Robespierre finds a way to fight the system, George Hanger gets interrogated, Abe takes a road trip to Idaho and if I don’t hit whatever arbitrary word count I’ve defined as too long we’ll catch up with Napoleone, too.


	3. The Conspiracy of Equals (Pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abe continues to follow his suspicions around Secrecy Arnold. Arthur’s contributions are rewarded with promotion (though his value remains overlooked.) Mary and John have a domestic after the latter admits to screwing over a former ally. Napoleone courts the Parisian elite to his peril.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It barely qualifies as a subplot, but one of the driving motivations in Sequel thus far has been a sport executive being killed in a worker’s uprising at an auto manufacturing plant stemming from an expensive club signing, and anyway – sometimes I think my imagination too dark for anything I put out to be read in earnest -
> 
> But uh, you guys, in case you missed it in the mess of COVID 19 coverage, apparently MBS is buying Newcastle United so I suppose my work now officially counts as fluff when compared to this hell we are living. 
> 
> Sorry, this was going to lead into some tongue in cheek thing about the chapter I just posted after weeks of revision falling into all those first date tropes that one might expect, but I just – the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is buying The Magpies. 
> 
> Fuck has this world come to?

Arthur Wellesley loved his brother - at least, he could reasonably convince himself of as much when he was not in the man’s direct proximity.

Richard Wellesley, for his part, or so the young officer might have deduced from the noise the outwardly estimable MP chose to subject them both to in the relative privacy of his car - all but parked in London’s evening traffic - shared in Arthur’s unspoken resentment regardless of the words he said that otherwise contradicted this posture. Empathy was hard won between siblings who shared an understanding of expectation; enthusiasm that did not venture on envy proved impossible to convey if ever it was felt. Therefore, when usual obligations confined any of the Wellesleys to a single space, like most families, they fought with one another that which they could not recognise enough in themselves to combat.

What perhaps differentiated theirs to other bloodlines, or so Arthur reasoned, was that their relation alone proved the single obstacle to productive partnership; where others spoke of holiday dinners as forced political discourse with those making the best argument against universal suffrage by their mere presence at the table, Arthur imagined he would quite like Richard if he knew him from a distance – if there was nothing personal laden in formulaic phrasing, if, for example, _‘Of course I support the troops’_ meant something other than _‘you’ll stay at mine for I’ll not hazard to leave you to your own devices lest you again because cause for humiliation – your own, our family’s, the military’s, the nation’s, any and all parties to which you are company’_ or if _‘Naturally, I have full faith in the ministry’_ could not be read as a retort _‘whatever pleasures you take in mocking the unsuccessful end of my courtship, as least I have the personal dignity not to have taken up house with a French prostitute – I have the last laugh, you just have bratty children and bills you cannot pay.’_

He should have stayed at a hotel the night prior. _That much_ Richard had been able to consent after an uncomfortable breakfast, but now after the day had finished with the promise of those to follow, Arthur wished they were driving back to the suburban condominium he had crushed and all of its other occupants whom he could not much stand even in the quaint imaginings of which most memory constituted.

He needed something he knew to be in the attic, but as he did not actively need or even want Richard’s help in obtaining it, there was nothing to be said between them.

His brother took far too fondly to any action that saw Arthur on his knees. Richard loved him, too, he knew, but only when he was affording him the chance to seem magnanimous in offering assistance. This, paradoxically to the limits of his own understanding of how to best relate, required Arthur to be present, and now, he found his mind adrift.

“So where are they sending you?” Richard asked – rather, shouted over what seemed an attempt to recreate Wacken in Westminster. The screams that could be heard over and endless – unvaried – guitar riff were illegible, but likely spoke more to the MP’s mind than any feigned interest in office or insignia. Arthur wondered if it would be better to simply pretend that he had not heard him over the noise that sold itself as music and that was purchased on the promise of rendered ‘authenticity’ in the same way most cheap beer found itself consumed.

To Arthur, it was just noise – a distinction shared by most of that which he could not make immediate sense of.

He had arrived back in Britain proper a mere eighteen hours prior and began almost immediately wishing to be returned to the front where he at least could find context in the chaos of sound. There was a comparative certainty to machine gunfire, something that sorely failed the flustered horns of disgruntled Londoners, the screams and cries and laughter of Richard’s spoilt, unruly children, the ‘music’ meant to block this out and the metronomic pace of speech of the men who had spent all of their time at Eton learning to mask all curiosity and emotion behind the same trained expression that communicated nothing of intention.

Arthur had spent the day in the interrogation of various bodies politick, giving his account of his actions upon receiving word that the Duke of Richmond had taken his own life and that of his brother’s widow to Sir Banastre and the Spanish monarch.

In the confusion the news carried it had been relatively easy to mask deceit between fact and presumed conscious on the part of the man with whom an agreement was intended, if only for show.

Arthur Wellesley, all the same, had not been content leaving his lies and assurances as deception when diplomacy with an important trade partner hung somewhere in the balance.

He had to find a means of making good on his claims, whatever the personal cost.

By the time negotiations had ended and he had returned to base, enough of what he had said to get in the door had been relayed to the Home Secretary to necessitate an immediate audience. Arthur had found his bags packed and was on a plane by evening. Having spent most of the last night leaning on his brother’s council, he had arrived at court in the morning to argue the ‘honour’ of a man he despised, knowing his own to be compromised beyond contrition. He would be stripped of his own rank regardless, or so he reasoned, but if he could convince anyone with the Queen’s ear to argue the basic sense of that which he in a fleeting word proposed, he satisfied himself there would be dignity to his discharge, regardless of the anonym sure to appear on his papers.

\- In a sense, his suspicions with regard to his own status had been confirmed in short order. Arthur Wellesley had ended the day with another star on his shoulder and stripe on his sleeve though his stomach remained as unsettled as it had been when the proceedings began.

 _‘I’ve been promoted,’_ he had told his brother (and host) sheepishly as he slid into the passenger seat, hesitant to continue eye contact when Richard claimed that he had expected such an outcome. For the five minutes prior to Arthur asking if they might stop off his old school before going to the hotel, Richard praised the now-captain’s ‘strategic brilliance’ far more complimentary language than that which Arthur had been met the night before. It was false praise, and they both knew it. Silence had fallen between them since; silence and an indie album Richard had playing at volume.

“First to the coronation,” Arthur answered. “Well, tea, and then … then that.”

“Tea,” Richard frowned, “you mean -”

“Tomorrow at four,” Arthur confirmed.

Richard only shook his head. “Sit up straight,” he told him, “by which I mean at no point allow your back to meet the chair or couch. Do not let your legs cross. Do not serve yourself. Answer questions rather than imposing them – you do not want to lend yourself to the impression that you think yourself to be cleverer than the Queen, trust me, you are not.”

“Right,” Arthur muttered.

“Trust also that others will take credit for your ideas - attempting to present them as your own would be … disadvantageous. Principle is that the coronation proceeds, not that you are afforded more praise for the role you played in initiating events.”

“I know … I’m neither nervous nor especially proud, as you would suggest, it is only,” he stopped, shifted, “can you turn this down? I can hardly hear myself think.”

“Do you not recognise it?” Richard smiled coldly. “Here, wait,” he continued, skipping a few tracks forward. “Still nothing?” he inquired a few bars in.

Arthur only shrugged. “This song sounds exactly like the last four that played.”

“No accounting for taste,” Richard returned, “oh, come Atty! You introduced me to Culper Ring.”

“I don’t really see how. I’m not old enough to remember CDs and to be honest, I am kind of curious where you even came across one.”

“No, you found it this on Spotify and I found you and Kitty trying to waltz to it at Francis Rawdon’s engagement-party-that-was-not, the one he threw on the same night as Edmund Hewlett held his own – it being too late to cancel by the time he had gotten word that his intended had given herself to another. It is a party! We are celebrating, or at least, I am. The proud Captain Wellesley would never reduce himself to having a spot of fun. Anyway, to answer your question, I got this on eBay for something like three quid which is mad, there were only 500 copies ever pressed and I’m in possession of one of them,” he said as though this were something to be proud of.

Arthur did, in fact, recall the night in question. He took out his phone and looked for the video of him and Kitty in what had been fated to be their last dance, a mimic of the Earl and Countess’ first.

“That such is a matter of pride for you,” he murmured, “can you just … can you turn it off?” Richard acted as though he had not heard him, and perhaps, Arthur reasoned, he had not. The young officer shifted. “Listen I – I changed my mind, if the offer is still open, I will just stay at yours for the next few days. You needn’t take me to school, either, I guess I could just text -”

“Oh, I was never going to,” Richard interrupted. “I get it - you want to gloat - but honestly, Atty, there is nothing in this world as singularly sad as someone returning to college after graduation, whatever the circumstance.”

“I was going to apologise.”

“That is even worse,” Richard smirked.

“It is owed,” Arthur defended.

“If this is about Marie Robinson, sure – you really fucked her and her family over, but what of it?” he asked dismissively. “She’ll have an honorific without inheritance - it might do her well on the marriage market, but one can presume if Clayton should exercise any power or influence after the next local election cycle, his almost-niece will never, _never_ wed another member of the nobility. It is just a standard she will bear for a time, the cost of saving Britain from itself. Any demonstration of regret would only stand to diminish the value you’ve proven yourself to be.”

“That is not what I am worried about. Marie is going to get home to find a hundred reporters outside her house and think that her mother passed away,” Arthur explained. “I just wanted to save her from suffering that collapse in front of a camera crew. Think on it,” he pleaded in the tone he knew Richard found most pleasing, “Sir Banastre is still at work, likely begging for pardon behind vaulted doors, unconscious that the news of his sudden claim has already been announced. If the first picture the papers have to accompany the story is his child in agony, the Tarletons influence in republican Merseyside will be strengthened, not weakened. Clayton can make all the claims he wants about not seeking status, and while everyone with even the mildest understanding of history of politics can understand that his use of the word liberty is all but synonymous with personal autocracy, the Liverpudlians will surely let their eyes again deceive them – let’s make nothing of it, post-FIAT they have no trust in the national news and The Echo does just that – ‘echoes’ everything coming out of the City Council with increased volume and just fills in the rest with Jürgen Klopp and the like.

“Now, if I don’t fix this, tomorrow’s edition will show the city’s unofficial first daughter bemoaning her new role in Society and frame it as an encroachment on behalf of national government on the freedoms and rights the city has enjoyed since the signing of its thirteenth-century charter. Rather than do an about-face and elect moderates with whom we can work, Clayton will be given a fucking mandate and whomever the fifth district appoints to take Banastre’s place in the Commons will be just as - if not more- damning to the body as we can all be sure seating a charismatic warmonger in Lords will surely prove with time.”

Richard did not look particularly moved but this argument.

“If, however, I talk to Marie before anyone who cares who she is has the chance to capture her,” Arthur continued, “she will either conduct herself with the decorum of ‘no comment’ or – better still, respond with the kind of wit lost in print, seeming to betray all of the ideals she means to defend.

“I will apologise, not for the reasons I _should_ of course – for using her in the same way I felt so self-righteous in condemning last Thursday night, more of as a means of framing, the same I used to make my case this morning,” he told, “The fact of the matter is, Lady Anna was never crowned with her husband for reasons of her paperwork and his politics. She stayed in America when he returned to bury his father and being pregnant by the time her government issued a passport was unable to travel to the coronation. As such, she can’t presently be crowned Duchess of Richmond, she can’t anyway without conversion, but giving her a ceremony, a tiara and a lesser, Scottish title in the meantime will both play down the sectarian aspects of accession and serve as ground for delaying Edmund’s inheritance until Europe loses its interest in dynastic land holdings.”

“And if Marie should inquire as to why you would see Lady Eleanor seated in her brother’s place?” Richard posed.

“I would be as honest about it as you’d have me be, I’m sure. Spain has a particular geo-political interest in our government’s recent failings, if they can’t recover Gibraltar, they would be happy to settle the score by other means. The king is no fool, he knows there is no chance in heaven, earth or hell of having a fellow Catholic nominally rule over the largest duchy in the three kingdoms, but much as the public stance is good for ceremony and show, he is conscious that should Britain actually break along its natural boarders, Europe will never escape recession - regardless if a Brexit deal is eventually negotiated or if the referendum is revoked in the next extension or the one after, or the one after …” he trailed off.

“And that is what you said this morning to the Home Secretary? Did you really express such doubt at the government’s competence?” Richard frowned once more.

“I sat in the back of a car for nearly twenty minutes with a pro-Brexit MP who was happy to acknowledge the negotiations as a complete and utter waste of taxation,” Arthur told him dryly, “who had been sent to Spain specifically because he had no intent of even trying to smooth things over. I’ve not had a night’s rest since, I’ve had to forge an alliance based on a lie with a foreign crown, convince my own government to make good on my deceptions, I’ve had to betray a friend, or rather, convince you as to why doing so would not be a show of weakness and, you’ll forgive me, brother, but I think you can excuse me for feeling a bit jaded in all of this. Yes, I was everything you warned me not to be this morning – authoritative rather than eloquent, self-righteous and slightly rude, but I got my point across and should not having to be making it again here, to you.”

Richard seemed to consider this for a time, but his speech served to contradict the thought Arthur imagined flickering behind his brother’s eyes. “When you were a kid, Mammy wanted to have you tested for Asperger’s. I was against it, of course, arguing her that such a diagnosis might make it difficult for you to get an officer’s commission – which might bear some truth, but really, my primary motivation was to deny you yet another excuse for your ever callous behaviour.”

Both assessments stung. Arthur wondered if it was the words themselves or the passive tense that forced him the discomfort of considering the implications. He bit his lip, wondering if their mother had shown the same affections for him as she seemed to share so freely with his brothers, he would have the confidence to be as equally blasé about world altering political happenings. “Thanks for always believing in me,” he snorted with some indignance.

“It isn’t that I _don’t_ ,” Richard insisted, “nor that I don’t share your understanding of optics in this specific case – but you have to realise that you have put yourself in a position, accidently or otherwise, that disallows you to be so … so awkward and flippantly insubordinate whenever it suits your mood,” he told him sharply. “I’m coming with you tomorrow to your meeting with Her Majesty. I can but assure you that you are not smarter than the Monarch or any of her ministers. Atty – do you really think for a moment that the Queen has not been looking for an excuse to unseat all who would stand to challenge her reign since Lord Edmund’s death called it into direct contention? Granted, with everything that has since transpired within the House of Windsor itself, Prince Andrew, Duchess Meghan … hell, Lady Anna might be their saving grace by causing more of a stir, but as unpopular as the outspoken American is in England, the Scots only love her more for it. Her husband has neither the mind nor character for politics, he has no interest in secession or kingship, which would not seem a threat if his people did not mistake his appointment of John Graves Simcoe to the cooperation bearing his family name as indicative of personal leadership and did not contrate the firm’s figures with the cost of monarchy – there are English, Welsh and Irishmen who would be as happy to see him crowned as the Scottish separatist counterparts.

“No one gives a damn for religion unless their voices are not being heard over honest, existential concerns,” Richard continued to lecture, “but now that Brexit has, in effect, made every ‘other’ into an enemy, Anna’s faith has become the topic of political intrigue across Europe. Even the avowed atheists at the Hôtel de Beauvau have been flocking to show their favour for a Catholic ‘Queen in Scotland’ since news of the suicide and subsequent path to attainment broke – I’ve never before heard Robespierre arguing for a lesser conviction but the instant it became advantageous to drop major charges against the father of the wife of the other Hewlett brother, he seems to have seized upon it with vigour.”

“Robespierre as in The Reign of Terror?” Arthur tried to stifle his urge to laugh, sure that his brother had mis-spoke, half-certain that the nomenclature was the product of Richard’s paramour and that Hyacinth was herself simply too stupid for syntax.

“Do you ever actually read the news or is your entire world view simply based on memes and Twitter-threads?” Richard spat. “Robespierre is a Ministère Public, like a Crown Prosecutor with more leeway - at least when it comes to ignoring European Law when he finds convenient. Stop laughing,” he warned, “the man wants to reinstate the death penalty and might well get the chance to if Brexit succeeds and all of the other countries of Europe are shown that the steaks in partnership are not equally shared.”

“Yeah, yeah – no, I know I just,” Arthur stopped. He did not have anything to say for himself. Given the weight of the situation actually affecting France, he doubted his brother would much care that PSG was in a legal battel with the greatest general in their nation’s history if names were much to go on. He bit his lip again, drilling himself to recall a single other item of court news from anywhere in Europe and fell flat in the excursion. Perhaps he had ought to spend more of his time following various legal proceedings, perhaps if such had occurred to him but a bit sooner he had he would not be in the precarious position of needing to convince his brother to let him stay another night under his roof that he might search the attic for a jacket the no longer fit, and, within its lining, a dossier that just might.

“At any rate,” Richard sighed, “destroying our unification would come at the benefit of many backward facing ideologies and implementations and yes, you are right to cite Lady Anna as the centre of all of this controversy and conspiracy, but the point I am making is that you are not alone in your assessment. You just happened to be in the room when the opportunity to offer a counter presented itself. Lady Eleanor is a favourite at court and - as such - despised in her native Scotland, should a legal president manifest that would allow her to ascend Richmond in her brother Edmund’s place, the fight for independence will be lost, or at least, its drive shifted from the Hewlett family. The only other clan with the connections and resources to stage anything resembling a coup are the Hamiltons who at present seem to be allowing a fucking English footballer to dictate their domestic policy. The war is but won without a shot having been fired.

“Leave Marie Robinson victim to her own graces before the press, let her sob instead, ultimately it matters quite little. Tarleton will lose his seat in the House of Commons either way, and his brother’s designs at holding the family’s traditional seat whatever form these should take will ensure that Sir Banastre’s voice is mute in Lords. You killed two birds with one stone, but I _warn_ you to be the epitome of modesty should Her Majesty seek to bestow you with any credit. You made the best of a situation you had no business involving yourself in, one that would have played out regardless of your contribution.”

“I still want to talk to her.”

“Marie? What are you going to ask for her hand now, too? No – I’m taking you for a fuck -bar, brothel, up to you - you need to release a bit of your adrenaline, testosterone, whatever it is that allows you to behave as though -”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, I have,” Arthur interrupted. “And your right, perhaps I am making too much of my own involvement. But I … all the same I don’t think you are right assuming that power drives itself and I don’t know that you and those with whom you share a mind are not confusing ends with means.”

“Explain,” Richard seemed to order.

“Do you read The Daily Mail?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“It’s editor, Effie Gwillim has been attacking the Tarletons since their walls were first breeched in Turin. There is no cause for this conflict, her family – one that I’ll remind includes John Graves Simcoe by proxy, has been in business with the Liverpudlians for years and their interest, at least on the surface, are still shared. But Gwillim has been fighting dirty to bring them down – Marie has done nothing to cause her offence, how could she? She is just a kid – one who shouldn’t have to face unwarranted allegations of sexual abuse on top of hosting Death at ever family dinner. I don’t have much praise for Banastre Tarleton but wouldn’t dare deny that he is an excellent father, and you can say whatever you want about Mary Robinson putting herself into abusive relationships for the sake of an album but she wouldn’t put her only child in any danger, she just wouldn’t. And now the adoption process has been delayed while allegations are investigated, and when Mary passes, her daughter will more than likely lose the only home she has ever known as a result and be sent into care as her legal father gave up rights for some ridiculous sum and her biological father famously never wanted her to begin with.

“So Gwillim destroys this girl’s real life right before she has to go up to Scotland where everyone does, it seems, to play at roles, thereby ensuring her own invitation is revoked, in other words, that she is not present for fingers to be pointed in her direction. She did the _same thing_ when the elder Edmund Hewlett died a few years past – went to America under the guise of covering a wedding and refused to break the real news of the day … or any whatsoever, now that I have a think on it. Yea,” he nodded after consulting with recollection, “I quite remember, George Hanger even wrote the damn fluff pieces about the wedding dress and flower arrangements while Effie Gwillim was off who knows where, probably conspiring to put her god-brother into power. She didn’t write about the wedding, the shooting, them finding Senator Arnold in John André’s quartered-off flat. She didn’t write about the research or the purge of ambassadors looking to profit … which, I suppose is how an article that first appeared in the German Sport Bild ended up winning the Pulitzer, but still, she got all of the credit by claiming none of it and that is exactly what she is doing again here.”

“What are you getting at exactly?”

“A lot of people profited from Lord Edmund’s death,” Arthur said as he considered, “a lot of movements too – but these were not in line with Gwillim’s politics. That is not a problem for her anymore, what with the Hewletts and Tarletons both effectively eliminated, but it is still one that needs to be solved if should you ever be bold enough to deem your political torpor a peace.”

* * *

Mary Woodhull had an ambiguous relationship with the concept of normalcy. Whenever she thought it at hand, something inevitably occurred to condemn the construct on which these concepts leaned as corrupted.

She had but the vaguest notion that she had at one point convinced herself that she made a good enough show of convincing others that her life was ‘normal’ enough as to not invite examination, but this status seemed so distant a memory that she could scarcely pin point when last she looked whole regardless of how she felt in a marriage that had been loveless until such time as it had ended. She met her current partner in the creation of an alibi and had spent the whole of the past three years seeking something evasive in a series of lies repeated in such chorus that they at times rang true.

Perhaps, Mary thought, ‘normal’ did not exist.

Perhaps, if it did, it was not worth the sacrifice it took to create.

Her former husband Abraham would always be a weasel. Her best friend Anna was given to courting conflict for the sake of empty words she called ‘principle’ and her critics, Mary often included among them, named ‘pride’ and every other manner of sin. Ben, her boss, suffered the same delusions but with the stains of blood attached to his name freeing him of personal ambition – not, necessarily, for better, for worse - for moral judgement too malleable in its infinity to dare apply to a hypothetical impossible to test. Edmund, Anna’s husband, was criminally brilliant and counterintuitively so socially awkward as to allow him to consistently escape consequence –

And Mary’s partner John, who assumed that as the rising Duke’s current favourite, he was sure to enjoy the same esteem absent of accountability the others had so expertly played.

This was ‘normal’ as Mary now knew it.

This, she decided, was not worth the cost of casualty, be it friend or foe.

“Six weeks, John – six weeks and you are only telling me this now?” she demanded in a voice far smaller than the situation otherwise warranted. But she never raised her voice in anger, at least not with John Graves Simcoe, knowing that her partner-in-crime and partner-there-since was more affected by sounds that nearly evaded him. This, of course, was not to say anything of the hearing impairment affecting the pitch of his voice and his absence of understanding when he came to personal space – it was something more fundamental within his soul, something more crippling than any physical detriment could prove.

When they had first met, John had worked in personal finance, which meant he earned his pay moving real wealth by screaming at the stock exchange, and he had been good enough at this that left him calm, comfortable, as through battle was all that was assured -

Battel, she thought, but not necessarily victory.

These days, John’s client list was limited, consisting of a single interest he had attracted through illicit means, but, as he never failed to defend, not exclusively his own. Mary had made his acquaintance when the car she was driving met with a public official and plans for covering up the incident were hastily laid. On the same evening, Anna (neé Smith, then Strong) had asked her betrothed for an investment he was not in the financial position to make, something that come the next morning seemed less a pressing concern – the authorities came to conduct an interview as Anna managed the pub where Senator Arnold had last been seen, and Edmund, waiting in the drawing room for this to finish, came by a multi-government conspiracy to make best use of the situation, and, with it, insider trading information he had been equally quick to share with the captain of his Sunday league soccer club. He handed a median annual income to John to see it quickly grow into millions, and in exchange for the risk he had forced upon his sometimes-friend, Edmund positioned himself to serve as the primary suspect in the investigation of the senator’s disappearance – certain that John was at fault, certain that as he himself had been uninvolved in the incident that his own record would be cleared and that they would all get away with what they were doing.

But three years after first courting conspiracy, Mary was herself certain that the guilty were always punished, if not by the law directly that certainly by the rule of conscious.

She herself had made deals with drug cartels, seen a civil conflict in Africa break into full blown war, sentenced an innocent government liaison to certain death and been party to a plot to kill a powerful member of the British Royal Family in cold blood only to replace him in the same moment with a decoy until the politics of succession could be secured.

They were all better off for it, and then, almost as suddenly as it had all begun, they were not.

John Graves Simcoe conflated fighting with winning to the extent that he could not see that he was at a loss. Mary Woodhull wished him to surrender whatever caused such conflict between his morals and the conflicting impulses in which he was prone to act.

She personally refused to be part of anything - even passively - that came at a cost to children.

The two men with whom she was raising her own seemed to lack such scruples, perhaps, Mary considered, owing to the sins of their respective fathers. Abe’s was a Justice of the US Supreme Court, appointed and sat along with a string of fellow conservatives who shared the same luck in the mortality of their predecessors and the unyielding nature of reactionism long latent. John had been raised by a magazine editor who seemed to hold a grudge against everyone whose words and deeds inked her pen and an admiral, who to judge by his service record and how infrequently he attended various naval galas in his retirement as would befit a man of his rank, likely did as well.

Mary, for her part, had always tried to make the best of managing her martial relations. Herself a product of foster care, she had long seen family as an aspiration. Now she tended to equate it with trench warfare, between forced pleasantries privately wondering if those with more well-polished names were wrong in seeming to always seek the final blow.

Richard Woodhull was comparatively harmless - unless one happened to be a woman in need of reproductive health services in the richest country in the world, or was simply progressive enough to want to continue living in the twenty-first century, regardless of wider politics or personal labels; he had never been much of a father and Abe had been raised with the expectation that he would fall short of his however limited potential, a belief neither never missed a chance to reinforce.

Margaret and Samuel Graves, on the other hand, had raised both John and his god-sister Effie to think themselves victim of various nuisance that seemed impossible to qualify as it seemed to only apply to them, they were orphans and therefore endowed with a stake in heroism that had turned to hubris in them both by puberty – they were _perfect_ , they could do no wrong and the wrong done by their hands surely, _surely_ was answerable to some other factor.

Both men, in a sense, were products of their environment. Her own children being part of a patchwork had a natural defence against such extremities, but Mary Woodhull was now forced to contend that the other boys and girls subject to sharing in their history were helpless against it.

Abe had used Cicero to try and surface documents that would have ruined Mary’s day in court had his efforts come to anything.

John, in turn, accused her of orchestrating the plan prior to confessing his own part in it.

Mary, for her part, was as frightened as she was furious. She wanted to scream, but this she would save for shouting would do nothing to convince her John of the severity of the situation he had helped create though weeks of silence. Such an action would remind him of battel, and her boyfriend took too much pleasure in the fight for its own sake.

“Six weeks ago,” he defended, taking a step closer to her, closing any semblance of comfortable space, “I was primarily concerned with the problems which I saw could be solved with swift action.”

“Those being?” Mary swallowed, awaiting another calamity that should have been well in control before presenting itself as otherwise.

“Before I left the party, I spoke to Clayton, expressing my … _concerns_ around the mishandling of his niece, to the assurances that he would see to it that a number of William’s assets are liquidated come January – Talleyrand will lose somewhere in the range of five to six million in offers no longer open to his clients, and that only in the short term,” he explained. “It will send a message, he shan’t return to England and being as the Prem is the most profitable market in terms of reliable transfer revenue, he will lose sums and then he will lose players, managers and the like to other agents.”

John had made his fortune by moving other people’s money. Mary saw this to be a dangerous game, especially in the example of sport where laundering often went unpoliced. She knew the name - or rather moniker – ‘Talleyrand’ from the hearing around the original insider trading scheme in which the man she otherwise loved had acted and wondered how senseless someone had to be to challenge the authority of someone so powerful and blatantly corrupt - not on John’s example as much as that of the Lord Mayor of the Proud (and often Problematic) City of Liverpool whom most seemed to view as the Tarleton family’s level head. Clayton, his brother William, and most of the rest of the dynasty had made their fortunes in sport – which John never missed an opportunity to relate to slave-trade. The now-mayor had only officially left the business, as it were, upon a threat to the dignity of his house as defined by geography, something in the end, it seemed, he could slow but not stop.

Still, Mary considered as she planned her next move, it seemed unwise to hurt those who had proven allies of shared interests on many occasions prior. But maybe it was better to let the Liverpudlians lose. It did not, however, suit to seek a challenge with someone by proxy who had clear ties to a body which had made itself famous for a willingness to prosecute.

It was business, they would all surely say, which Mary knew well enough to interpret as an admission that no one ever let things go.

Hopefully, John’s hand would not show, and his head would not be sought.

His glance told her that her questions here were valid – assured as he seemed that no crime had been committed except perhaps one of concise and the consequences far overreacted the scope of offence.

It was too much of a risk if nothing else.

“And that avenges a young girl’s innocence? Christ John!” Mary hissed, “What is you plan then for sorting out the rest of them – Cicero, whom Abe,” she stopped abruptly, knowing that her current never missed an opportunity to criticise her ex if one arose. Even if in this instance the ire was well earned, she did not want to afford him a sense of self-righteousness. Not now. Not ever if it could be helped. Abe was still the father of her son and eldest daughter, and she would not tolerate the man who shared in that role to speak ill of him in these four walls.

“What are you going to do to help Cicero?” she rephrased, “To clean up the mess of this girl who accused you of murder weeks before the Duke of Richmond was found dead in his chamber in the same suit where you told me he was forced at gunpoint to change into upon assuming that role from his murdered brother, with the same make and model in his hand?”

John shook his head. “That isn’t the message Edmund Senior was sending, Mary – it is business, he was unhappy with me for pursuing offshore drilling as part of enterprise and thought to punish the firm as a whole with the instability created by his untimely death as a means of robbing us of that revenue option,” he said as though he believed his assumptions to be of any significance, “but the deal has already been done and as I am _not_ a Hewlett -”

“Oh, there are times when you _very_ much are,” Mary spat, the word business as he had used it, as she had expected, repeated in her mind in John’s high screech of a voice at ever deafening volume.

“Her name is Catharine Pakenham, her family is in the high admiralty, I’m sure an understanding can be reached.” It sounded to Mary as though he had already arrived at one she would have to work to retract. It did not sit well with her that Abe had gotten Cicero to spy, his little internet friend to steal, that this Catharine had found herself in a position to make murder accusations before fate had made them true or that anyone was making or losing ‘business’ on the last of Marie’s stolen innocence.

“I’m not sure your godfather didn’t mention the plot to someone he shouldn’t have.”

“I suspect Margaret instead said something to that nature from behind the shut door. As I have stated, I couldn’t hear what was spoken, and should my assumption be right, I have reason to doubt that the girl heard correctly either – why else would she accuse me and Effie alone of involvement when we were the only ones not directly involved? It could be that this is all coming from Francis Rawdon” he seemed to consider, “though what his conflict is with me I can’t say but shall endeavour to find out.”

“If it is coming from Rawdon it could be that he is after Edmund and Anna’s English title,” Mary replied, peeved to be talking of crowns when the heads made to wear them were at risk, “I know such concerns her and if the other rumours surrounding his person and well, purse have any truth to them I wouldn’t put it past him. Effie owns the English press and he might well assume you to be a good negotiator.”

“There is no need to me to get involved in negotiations,” John dismissed. “Anna being Catholic is the best thing that might have ever happened to the Windsors, now they don’t have to look for a reason to justify their unwillingness to seat her. Francis could well forgive the Crown’s debt to him in exchange for the annulment of his lover’s current marriage and take Richmond with her as his prize. The affair alone speaks to the fact that Ellie would do anything to keep her sister-in-law from power and an Irish lord becoming England’s largest landholder will go some way to easing tension on the other island.”

“But the Tarletons will want compensation or they will take it in blood, perhaps that which has already been spilt.” Mary countered.

“They will be too occupied with the French,” John said with a slight smile, doubtlessly considering his own slip into folly for brilliance.

“And that doesn’t come as concern to you?” Mary demanded with hopes of disabusing her lover of his ideas of accomplishment. “The only reason your original scheme with Edmund was never prosecuted past a hearing is because this same Talleyrand was willing to subscribe to the lies Banastre furthered on your behalf during the hearing and could use his regard to convince Interpol not to police things further.” 

John nodded, but more, it seemed, to himself. “I disagree with his methods,” he began, “you know I do, but supposing Abe was right, even, even supposing he is fully mistaken in his assumption that André escaped the hangman’s noose – if Europe’s powers believe as much, no one is going to much care about minor business transactions in the private sector or seats that people privileged to be ordinary don’t imagine as yielding any real power in this day and age. If André is _alive -_ ”

Mary did not want to consider the implications until she could confront them with more certainty than an assumption on the paranoid imaginings of people she never hoped have need to meet.

“I don’t want you pursuing this,” she warned. “You, or Abe, or anyone else. I’ll call Philomena at a Christian hour and see if she is willing to take me upstate next time that she visits Rogers in prison.”

For the first time in the course of this argument, John seemed to have heard her. “Mary, I won’t allow you -” he started.

“And I won’t take orders form someone who has the courage to call for a charge but lacks the heart to lead it,” Mary sneered. “I’m going. It is my mess, too.”

* * *

“There _is_ no case here, Rose,” Theresa Tallien interrupted.

“That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a story,” Rose Tascher retorted with more injury than she expected her voice might betray.

Ordinarily, Rose only offered on that which she heard in passing with the same casual disregard as these words had been spoken to her or within her proximity but she had spent the better part of the past week pouring over everything she could find about the Hewletts upon making herself privy to a yet-unpublicised autopsy report, and her efforts showed, or rather, should have warranted at least some measure of the time and interest she had poured in to her presentation. The workbench in the back office of the smallest of her locals was strewn with coffee-stained newspaper clippings, photographs, and scribbled notes.

Rose looked up from the barren fruit of her labours, past the girl tending the register, past the array of floral crowns, loose cut flowers and finished bouquets to the front door and the small bell on it that for the moment refused to ring.

In an hour or so when the work day finished and the Parisian streets were again filled with generic love stories, the bell would chime with the cold November wind that would gush in though an entrance ever-open, young men and women hearing in its music weddings that may well never manifest outside of their minds, Rose, in turn, hearing the clapper of coinage in the same metallic melody. She would wrap a shall over her shoulders to keep the evening chill from the marrow of her bones, take her leave of Theresa and re-join her employees in the front of the shop, eventually with a bottle of cheer to keep the girls’ cheeks rosy and their spirts high as they worked while other lives happened. When the shop closed at eight, she would send most home with tips, taxi fares and what few flowers had not been swept up in the romance of a Friday night in the city love claimed, have a conversation with her manager after tending to the till and conduct a short conference with those running the other four shops she owned, before bidding everyone adieu - locking up without herself leaving. Her young children had a sitter as they did every Friday and Saturday night and as such, Rose would have all the time the darkness could afford to solve a murder that metaphorically threaten to take yet another innocent life.

As day turned to dusk without a sound from outside, she worried that such had already come to pass.

She wished her closest friend, or rather the woman whose patronage closest resembled such a construct in her otherwise desperate, desolate existence, would at least afford her the custody of being less flippant in her disregard –

but then, this was Paris. What else had she dared expect?

Rose Tascher had moved to the mainland from Martinique at fourteen to pursue the dreams of her paternal aunt - dreams which involved subjecting herself to the unattainable phantasies of other people though fashion and discourse. Though Rose’s career as a model was short lived – having been taken as a trophy and placed on a shelf shortly after it began - her resumé was one that might have inspired the envy of her would-be rivals – including runway, high end editorials, and more recently a high profile investigation that left her a widow with a reputation coloured black.

Society had since allowed her little change to correct misconceptions born from creatively penned broadsheets – post arrest and stay of execution, Rose had charmed half of the snake pit that was the nation’s senate with half-smiles that left her hatred only half-concealed at wild parties she both hosted and attended at the encouragement of her benefactress – ‘encouragement’ that left her little room to negotiate or negate.

In a sense, Rose had little choice but to play at and play up and at the role she had been assigned.

In another, she supposed there was not a soul in the city who could not say the same.

She had met Theresa Tallien in prison a few years prior, which was to say that whilst she herself sat in a cell without any charge save for that of her married name, the two had formed something of a partnership with a panel of Plexiglas between them when the Spanish banker’s daughter who had fallen in to (rather than ‘in with’) Paris as a student had been reporting on the court’s heavy hand whilst working for the paper that had snatched her up from the Sorbonne. The story went national and had been translated into several languages when the world began to count the problems of a heavy handed judiciary as among those worth solving in the brief window that had been opened to victimised women and minorities between the latest US presidential election and Fridays For Future. The story had also been Theresa’s last for the medium of print.

Madame Tallien now moderated a weekly televised discussion panel to high ratings and acclaim, and Rose -who officially owned a chain of flower shops and a landscaping service that operated under the same name she called ‘Another’- used the impossible position her husband’s death sentence had otherwise found her in to find topics and talking points for her friend to further pry into as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for the outrage caused by the article Theresa had once penned to the possibly -and _probably_ \- unintended effect of having the case against her dismissed.

Or, rather, _delayed_.

Though it had never come up as a topic between them, Rose had no cause to question the reality of her guilt. If a justice would have been convinced of the same beyond unreasonable doubt was a hypothetical that seemed to come closer to testing each day.

In the end, they would come for her.

In the end no one ever escaped.

Sometimes it was difficult to be grateful for intervention.

Sometimes what Rose discovered in smiling at monsters wearing bespoke suits in smoke-filled salons caused her to question if she would not have been better off facing the proverbial guillotine years back, for spies like herself always hung, but what few realised were that thin ropes failed to kill.

Suspension, she felt, was worse than the fall.

Rose gave the door another glance when its chime set a pulse through her that quickly became a shiver when she took note that the man who entered was not the one whom she had been awaiting all afternoon. Her index finger grazed her phone, illuminating the lock screen and its absence of news bulletins relating to the proceeding.

“There is a story here, Theresa,” she repeated with more weight. “Richmond’s end was a Kleistian opening, shooting his brother’s widow and then himself and in doing so confessing not only a murder but a failure to investigate. I’ll confess, I rarely find myself quite so intrigued by that which the people who had not had to earn their money discussed between themselves behind closed doors, but this is different in that it seems to have equally captured the interest and imagination of men whom I,” she adjusted, hoping to win empathy, “whom we _both_ want to see fall before they take the chance to inflict further injures on innocents.” If Theresa actually cared how power was being wielded was doubtful. She would have something to cover as long as the helpless continued to have cause for concern. It occurred to Rose as it had on many occasions past that if she wanted this story told she would have to play an active role in bringing it to a conclusion -

perhaps the pen was mightier in the end; perhaps she should be sharpening her sword all the same that things be taken so far as she herself wished.

Theresa’s round eyes widened slightly as her eyebrows raised in a manner that did not betray any direct investment. She should have figured as much. Rose was streetwise and sociable in ways she feared spoke to the reality that she had never formally received anything more than a rudimentary formal education. When she spoke, men laughed merrily; when Theresa spoke, they instead listened. Her friend had been born into the Spanish aristocracy and had been educated in the best schools in Europe and as such, Rose felt, would get further with the line of inquiry than she might ever hope to alone.

She looked back to the diagrams she had begun making on her desk, hoping the words she sought would spring from something within it, offering an explanation that did not in itself arriving at the outcome she still half-hoped to avoid.

“Of course there is a story,” Thresa smiled, though she sounded as though her patience had been already exhausted by an explanation she seemed to feel need not be spoken, “it just isn’t about Edinburgh as much as it is about Paris. If Police Scotland wanted to pursue a line of inquiry around who the dearly departed _was_ if he wasn’t, strictly speaking, the Duke of Richmond, the DCI wouldn’t be asking for Fouché’s advice in how to accomplish such a fete,” she said briskly, “and for his part, our dear director wouldn’t allow Talleyrand to dictate the conversation as much as you suggest if he - and by relation his Scottish counterpart - had any direct leads to follow up.

“Now, I don’t doubt that Fouché will solve the crime,” Theresa continued, “which is to say, I don’t doubt that he won’t contrive a conceivable scenario to make all statements and evidence he can access support the assumption he has already arrived at – that is, as you yourself cite,” she said in a manner that felt demeaning, “that a number of powerful families whose interest were temporarily married to the imminent demise of the Duke and his entrepreneurial younger brother are not now seeking to divorce themselves from each other and whatever secrets that once kept them united … but that is not,” Theresa frowned, “… Fouché wouldn’t be as invested in this as he certainly seems to be, at least not on its own merits unless he sees some value that fails my imagination at present.”

Rose nodded, attempting to mirror the moderator’s tactic of testing resilience though a feign. “To be fair, I don’t know that he _is_ all that interested as I have let myself become -”

“He sat with a famously corrupt sport executive for over two hours without once making hints at FFP,” Theresa dismissed with a wave of her hand. “He’s letting Robespierre court Scottish favour in bringing a minor charge against a man he would rather have stood accuse of terrorism and state treason, an easy enough conviction for him or any other public prosecutor to have gotten should he have pursued that course, and one that would surely have seen Fouché’s oversight increased at that – no, Fouché must have something more to gain from this autopsy, otherwise he would have spent his Sunday raining hell on his enemies within,” she considered aloud. “I don’t think him a gambling man otherwise, whatever is almost within reach is so immediate that he all but considers it obtained. It is certainly making _you_ nervous, Rose. You keep looking to the door as though you expect it to open at any moment, come, what are you denying me?”

Rose pressed her lips together and bit at them slightly from within, wondering if there could be any gain in confessing the extent of her concerns. It was enough that Theresa found common cause in chasing whatever it was that Fouché found in a case that was not open, she thought. She spoke, “Nothing of immediate interest, nothing, at least, that relates to any of this except … do remember how we all had a laugh a few weeks back over Napoléon? I met him. Last Sunday.”

“Oh?” Theresa perked up as she leaned in.

“Not in the lounge,” Rose deflected, sensing that she had ought to have kept this to herself for a bit longer. “He was sitting with a few of his injured – actual – teammates at Saint Germain and Eugène somehow got it into his head to go down and make a nuisance of himself -”

“That is not something I would have trusted him to do,” Theresa interrupted, again knitting her brow. “Hortense, sure -” she began.

“Oh this was doubtlessly at his sister’s urging,” Rose acknowledged, “she was being something of a brat the morning over - as honestly I hoped she might prove, I’m growing rather bored with Barras and nothing sparks an amicable break-up quicker than a reminder that I exist outside of -, that I have responsibilities and concerns that extend the bedchamber, and the kids are none the wiser to it,” she found herself defending, “they like being taken along on such outings, watching football or fireworks and – oh stop looking at me that way!” Rose insisted, shifting her guilt as much as she dared, “I work seventy-hour weeks to support my children. That I occasionally let them have a bit of fun at the expense of the men _you_ have me see to serve as a reminder that my interests are invested elsewhere without having to confess that the chemistry and compatibility they perceived in me was largely imagined. It is not as though I would ever take a man home or introduce anyone I’m ‘seeing’ to them in such fashion, they already lost one father twice and will again when they are old enough to understand that he abandoned us long before his execution regardless of what I do to shield them and I’ll not have them suffer the same in the name of anyone else.”

It did not surpass her intellect that she was widely considered a bad mother based on circumstances over which she had little control. The assessment hurt naturally, but Rose had reason to hope her son and daughter would one day grow to share in it, that she could allow them such privilege. She was herself an immigrant, a small business owner, and a single mother stuck in a world of political machinations and palace intrigue in which she knew she had no part. But where she was self-educated out of her own perceived necessity and underfed intellectual needs, her children would have the privilege of having the kinds of books Rose had taken it upon herself to read merely read to them in university by those qualified to offer commentary which was what one needed in this world to gain respect and prestige. They would major in fields that fit their interests instead of her stated hopes and someday find themselves on a therapist’s couch complaining about her person – which was all good and just. To Rose’s mind, only those for whom all of life’s needs had been fulfilled had the arrogance or energy to blame their mothers for problems they invented in their minds.

She loved her children. They would never come to know true hardship if she could do anything to help it, even if such ultimately came at the cost of their affections for her.

But she was a ‘bad’ mother. Women who had to fill any role extending that bond generally were because the world’s considerations still directed themselves to patriarchal expectation that made little economic sense.

“I just mean … Barras is a powerful man and he keeps you well,” Theresa said, clearly displeased, “Can you truly afford -”

“Can I, or can _you_?” Rose snapped. The idea that she was ‘kept’ was a laugh – if anything she was enslaved by the mayor, the moderator and everyone else in the rot of wealth that made this city. _Kept_ , she thought, hoping that such words would never be spoken to her daughter by anyone.

“Rose -”

“Forget it,” she said as he eyes drifted back to the door that did not open. Nomenclature aside, Rose was furious with Paul Barras on grounds she knew it would serve not to defend. The mayor simply had to go, at least insofar as he could be gone to her.

Rose closed her eyes and tried to envision a series of conversations of which she had not taken part - conversations that had opened her door in the first place, conversations that quite likely now kept it closed.

“No, what happened? What are you so reluctant to relay? Did this Napoléon hurt your son somehow? Rose, really, I didn’t mean to suggest that anything which you do or design is to your children’s detriment.”

“No … never,” Rose gave, cut by the memory present in her friend’s tone of begging Theresa to advocate for her children when the chains she wore had been physical. She owed her far more the insolence born from frustration over a situation the woman would have never intended.

In contrast, she owed Napoleone nothing she had not already given.

If he had taken her for her warning, so much the better. For _him_ , at least.

Still, she wished for the door to swing open and for the small, slight boy to walk in with his tracksuit and muddy trainers, speaking highly of himself in a reproachable accent as though dangers either did not occur to him or as though he considered them little consequence.

Rose looked at the time displayed on her lock screen. He had probably already been made victim to his blind arrogance without even the curtesy of first being useful to her own ambitions. This was Paris, after all. What more could she hope for? What more dare she expect?

“Quite the contrary, actually,” she shifted. “Napoleone, as far as I could gather, was patient with Eugène, then … perhaps he was just lonely himself. I hardly exchanged more than a few words with him when I went down to collect my boy from the stands, but he came by on Wednesday, Napoleone, I mean – looking at cut flowers as though he were completely lost and, well,” Rose found herself rambling, “I was on my way out to collect Hortense from her art class and then buy groceries before picking up Eugène from practice, but I had a few minutes and asked him if he needed any help – actually, what I asked was _‘How mad is she?’_ and he stammered through a series of vague statements that suggested something more in line with what I had rather suspected – that ‘she’ didn’t have much of a clue that he existed outside of whichever latest meme making fun of his name was making its rounds and suggested he could not go wrong with roses,” adding with a roll of her eyes that escaped intention, “which he said he found far too pedestrian.

“Then I introduced myself,” Rose continued, “and he reminded me that we met before. I had not forgotten, I said, he offered me his name, at least, the Corsican version of it, to which I said _‘that must be hard’_ and he kind of laughed off, apparently his brothers all have Italian names that Nintendo has since made into stereotypes so at least he managed to avoid that distinction. Then he brought up ‘By Another Name’ being an allusion to Shakespeare and he asked if ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was my favourite of the Bard’s works and I told him that while I prefer the histories, my name is Rose and I couldn’t arrive on a more common-place line of poetry befitting a flower shop. Satisfied with this, he bought some tulips, which he proceeded to hand me right after I’d given him his change and told me that the Wars of the Roses is an allusion to the symbols of York and Lancaster, but the Tulip War was fought over actual flowers.”

“Did he mean the medieval stock market crash or the cold war between Holland and Turkey?” Theresa broke in, attempting to conceal a smile Rose guessed had more to do with the story she imagined rather than the one which she was actually being relayed. Rose was offended and nearly made as much known, but considered in the same moment that perhaps it fit in with her own intentions for her friend and all of her enemies to believe her taken with Buonaparte –

If it accomplished nothing else, it might yet save the boy’s life.

“I think the latter. I asked if he thought if war was particularly romantic and he answered that the best literature on the subject certainly is, and then he asked if he could take me to dinner so I could tell him that War and Peace isn’t truly a _novel_ but a philosophical discourse in narrative structure as I looked poised to do, but oh -”

“I know,” Theresa sought to sympathise, “no man can truly be well-read. When they try to frame themselves as such it speaks only to pretention that in itself confesses one to be fool and fop.”

Rose snorted at the thought. “Though I’d ordinarily subscribe to this assessment, your description is laughable in Napoleone’s case. He was wearing a tracksuit and muddy trainers and has that longish, badly dyed hair – a shade of blonde that wouldn’t suit his skin tone even if his roots weren’t so,” she stopped, electing to instead demonstrate roughly two centimetres with the space between her thumb and index finger, “but appearances aside, he was completely genuine or at least came off as such – genuinely interested in all the world had to present and in that alone genuinely interesting despite his clear failings as a conversationalist. Really a pity he is quite so young,” she considered once more, “but conscious of this and increasingly so of my own diary as I began making calculations of oh, you know the sort ‘ _am I actually old enough to be your mother or was puberty just particularly ineffectual in your example?’_ ”

It was relatively easy to make a man believe in infatuation. To convince a woman who had engaged in the same harmless deceptions when life allowed for little else of the same neared impossibility, especially when the alleged subject of said affection looked anything like ‘the little emperor.’ Still, Rose found herself considering much to her own surprise and self-disgust, there had been something charming in his presence and persistent intellect, perhaps owing to nothing more than how unexpected such was in an athlete. She frowned, hating that she found herself the subject of his romantic interest, hating that she had ultimately perpetuated such phantasy and was in the process of attempting to extend the same to a third party. She had been considerably younger than her husband, for a few years made a world of difference when one party was still biologically, and therefore, it must be assumed emotionally pubescent, absent of any counter indications one sought or sought to present. Were her daughter to taken with a man several years her senior upon reaching her maturity, Rose did not have to imagine her fury at the situation would not be shared. As a mother, it gave her concern that Eugène, should he find himself in the same hypothetical spot, would either be applauded or made the subject of some minor amusement within his circles, but he would not be considered a victim in the same way as his sister surely would. Rose herself could not find the difference between the sexes in this respect and sincerely doubted that Madame Buonaparte could either. She liked Napoleone as much as she might, sure, but surely no further than the limits that needed to exist for his sake.

Perhaps she had been cruel in encouraging his conversation.

Perhaps she was herself simply lonely as she saw him as being and let this impulse take her to the point of regret.

“His name is Napoléon and he is short besides!” Theresa laughed. “Oh, bless, the boy must truly have the worst of it.”

“To be sure,” Rose continued, her gaze falling as she felt her ivory skin stain red, “but I do in fact have it within myself to be gentle and - by way of letting him down - explained that I had obligations that disallowed my acceptance, but provided he was keen we could pick up a coffee to go, so … we went,” she cursed herself, trying to outwardly maintain a causal tone and pace. “He came back about a block later after we hit up the café – you know the one - with the comment that he wasn’t entirely convinced that _I_ was keen, on coffee, he meant, giving how much sugar I stirred in atop the two or three pumps of vanilla syrup, to which I defended - if one can call it such - that I grew up on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean and only moved to the mainland long after my taste had been established, and in the handful of steps that followed, we two came to find that we understood one another quite well.

“Like myself, he moved to the continent alone as a young teen with all of the financial hopes of his family weighing upon him in ways those he shared a room with at the academy could not relate,” she relayed, hoping to win in Theresa some of the sympathy she found had been inspired in her own death heart, “tragedy at home struck him just when it became apparent that the trajectory of his career had all but flatlined – his father dying, his elder brother unable to contribute to the family’s welfare under a mountain of student debts, failing to make the first team and being sent on loan somewhere that afforded him little playing experience … you know,” she paused, “I recognise what he did was _wrong_ , of course, but I think it possible for one to be guilty in the view of the law whilst remaining wholly innocent.”

“I think it is possible that you are projecting,” Theresa observed.

Except that she was guilty as charged. Except that she had thus far gotten away with it. “To be sure, to be sure,” Rose nodded, not wanting to distract from any part of the illusion of her life. “Still -”

“Broke as he says is, he still shelled out for flowers and coffee – or in your case, sweets presenting themselves as such.”

“He has a hearing today that he feels comfortable about, though I don’t, less so with each passing hour … but should the ruling go his way, he will sit an exam in the coming week that could change his fortunes, but - not that you’d accuse me of being a doe-eyed fool - I did raise the issue with him.”

“And?”

“I was rather struck by his confidence, to be honest,” Rose admitted. “He told me he had been so struck since the first time he saw me that he had hardly slept a night since, fearful of the dreams sleep might bring for none could be so lovely as my face – I know,” she paused to share her friend’s snicker, “it gets worse. Serendipitously, or rather not – you know how we all waste out time - he was watching something on YouTube when that Peugeot spot about green energy with me doing the voice over and a few shots of me in my flower shop are cut in with a car driving through a version of Paris that only exists in advertising -” she began to complain. She had done the commercial for a pittance and the royalties she received came in the form of Insta shares and follows. Business was expanding, but to what extent this owed to her sudden status as an ‘influencer’ – a term Rose did not even know where to start with – she could not say. She did not have a personal car, electric or otherwise. She lived in Paris; she had a metro card and a small flask of pepper spray like every other woman in her post code. The spot itself was dumb in pretending otherwise and part of Rose felt sick for her role in furthering anything of the city’s ill-fit propaganda and unfulfilled promise.

“I know it,” Theresa sighed her own reservations, “that thing plays every damn add break -”

“He doesn’t own a television,” Rose shrugged.

“And here you sought to argue that he wasn’t pretentious!” she began to laugh. “My dear Rose, I dare say I think you may have fallen for the boy.”

“My interest in Napoleone are of a different nature, I assure you,” Rose smiled. The best way to convince anyone of a lie was to shroud it in truth.

“I’m invested all the same. Do continue – you’re blushing, you realise.”

“I’m growing nervous, as I said, for reasons I was about to get to.”

“So, he sees this commercial,” Theresa retracted, “learns you name and tracks you down -”

“Not _just_ \- he went to ever shop in the city before discovering me at the Carousel, and this all on foot, explaining some element of his appearance. He said he had to make my acquaintance at any and all cost – all, presumably, excluding the two Euros for public transport - having been so impressed with my son that he had to meet properly the angle of grace he imagined me being by virtue of whatever had been discussed between them. At this declaration I stopped, took his hand in mine if only so that he might feel that they are calloused – that I am nothing of the sort of woman I’ve come to imagine he might have wanted to intervene on his behalf - and explained that anything he fancied me being could not stand up to contact or conversation. I could not _keep_ him, in other words – specifically, in yours,” she could not help but to slight.

“Rose, please don’t -”

“Then, almost as if I had called for her,” Rose dismissed out of hand with a slight wave of her own, “Hortense came out of her art class and immediately took charge of the narration in that nonsensical way that young children do - recognising my afternoon’s companion from the papers and conflating him with his historical counterpart of sorts until I tried to gently remind her - not that Napoleone grow all the more embarrassed by that which he’s been hearing for weeks if not his life-over - that he was a _footballer_ , not an _emperor_ , and that to that end France had not had an emperor since 1870, not that there have not been attempts.”

“You count anything after 1815 as true empire?” Theresa squinted.

“I can count the western heads of state with a genuine interest in infrastructure on a single hand,” she began to demonstrate, “and as such consider the Second Empire having that going for it if nothing else, but lest this get too political -”

“Five? I could _maybe_ do three – so you have Napoléon III, Frederick II … FDR was that the ‘New Deal’ the Americans are always seeking to revise or am I confusing him with someone else?” she asked.

“And yet every elected official has claims of a package,” Rose answered with an eye roll.

“Quite right, 1870 - I’m sold,” Theresa surrendered.

“Yes, but my daughter, bless her, was not – the papers called Napoleone ‘the emperor’, or she insisted, possibly out of her want to show him that she knew how to curtsey, and they could not print anything that was not true because this was ‘liable’, and so I tried to explain to her what that actually meant in the context of the legal code, but I suspect such too far extends her understanding even if she is otherwise in procession of the vocabulary.” This was not a slight against her child, Hortense was but in cours préparatoire, a fact that both mother and daughter might do better to remember, at least in extended company. “Napoleone, to his credit, did a much better job simply in saying that it was a nickname, the same way that the English call Mo Salah ‘the Egyptian King’ though he has no such title,” she gave. “Hortense, of course, did not know who that was and when told, began asking Napoleone quite a bit about football by way of confessing that her brother played but either he wasn’t very good because he never got to start or he was lying about it outright because when she and I finished shopping before practice ended he never seemed to make contact with the ball – no one passed to him and he had no initiative to get it on his own. All of this is true, of course,” Rose freely acknowledged, “but still I told her she was being naughty for saying such things and she took it upon herself to invite Napoleone along to practice.

“Quite naturally, I should think, he said he did not want to impose, and I, not wanting to actively acknowledge before my own child the discomfort men always tend towards when faced with anything that disrupts their ideas of bravado, as the offspring of those before them never fails to do, that we had already taken up enough of one another’s time and that would have been it” she paused, “except … as we were saying an awkward farewell, Hortense gave him the picture she had painted in her watercolour class and asked something so bizarre – even, and really, _especially_ for a six-year-old that even I for a moment struggled for context.”

“What then?” Theresa inquired.

“If he understood the tax code, which – I’d forgotten to mention - is what Eugène had intended to ask him the Sunday prior but by the time we had gotten back upstairs, Hortense had been roped in to trying to solve a murder and had forgotten to ask him about it,” she explained as dismissively as she might.

“No,” Theresa returned, “One can’t make any claim whatsoever that their exposure to salon culture is having no adverse effect on your children’s development.”

“I know,” Rose swallowed painfully, “and I know I am going to have to make some changes, but -”

“At least they are not dull, your kids.”

“Sometimes I wish they were,” Rose admitted. “Napoleone gave me a curious look – I mean, who wouldn’t? - knelt down that he was eye-level with my little girl and explained to her that he had a very good lawyer who it so happened did know the tax code and that as such he would be fine, she did not need to worry. I then said something to the effect of, _‘oh, right, your brother’_ \- feeling that I should offer something after my daughter actively sought to make it seem that nothing normal ever happens within our household – which, to be fair to her, I might have done more to shield her from Fouché’s … predetermined conclusions, shall we say, but regardless,” she shifted. “Napoleone then countered, _‘no, Maximillian Robespierre’_ and my heart simply stopped.

“Shit,” Theresa echoed, her eyes widening, themselves seeking the door that remained shut.

“On second thought, I told Napoleone upon being met with all this, if he had nothing better to do he could come along, and if he was still hungry he could in fact join us for dinner – an offer he took me up on immediately. Hortense was understandably uncomfortable around him after he had spoken the name of the man who had her father killed, so when we got to the grocer, I asked Napoleone to go and pick out something for dessert while I got the stuff to make dinner. Taking my daughter a few aisles from him, I explained that Napoleone was new to Paris, that I liked him very much and wanted to be friends with him, and that he probably did not realise how much trouble he was in.

“I wanted to protect him, I told her, but at the same time I knew that telling him outright that Robespierre was a very bad person would only frighten him away from me and thus I would not be able to save him from becoming a pawn in some power struggle that had nothing to do with him whatsoever,” Rose relayed, hoping she had not inadvertently taken on the same tone in doing so which she used when she needed to quiet or comfort her children. She did not particularly like to think about her husband’s death and fully hated that her daughter had been made to - the only memory Hortense likely had of her father was a violent death conflicting reports classified both as ‘suicide’ and ‘accidental’.

Rose glanced again to the door. The front room was filling though not with the company she sought and in every empty smile she saw further bloodshed and could not help but to fret that in her daughter had somehow been taken by the same horrors, that she had done too little to shield her from the words she whispered at night be it in plan or prayer.

“Hortense nodded her understanding,” she continued, blinking in succession as she collected herself from the demons she suspected would sooner than later rob her of all conscious, “and made me a pinkie promise that she wouldn’t say anything to anyone, not even her brother or her friends at school and especially not ‘the emperor.’ And then to put a seal on the negotiation, I let her choose between chicken nuggets and noodles – the two things she and her brother can always agree on. She picked the latter and was reasonably happy and non-suspect for most of the rest of the evening – and when then … it was only the usual sort, you know.”

“I don’t,” Theresa confessed.

Rose Tascher knew her children to be odd but was uncertain to what extent this owed itself to her efforts as a mother versus her failings in the same respect. “Oh, when we passed the Louvre,” she shrugged, “Napoleone told her that the picture she had given him was pretty enough to be hanging there and she responded that it wasn’t, she had already asked someone at reception before only to be told to wait until she was a bit older, which Hortense then told that she interpreted to mean that by the time she was dead the world would not look the same as it now did and then people would care about trees and buildings their forefathers never stopped to look at and that they themselves would never otherwise have a chance to know, to which Napoleone responded - to me, mind - that my children had curious outlooks on the world and I explained it away as owing to my friendship with a famous journalist,” she smiled as Theresa began to fan herself with an open-palmed hand in self-ironic appreciation of the praise, “various politicians, et cetera; that we visited museums on the regular and usually ate dinner on a table clothed with broadsheets as I found that since they otherwise quickly bored of their food and grew restless at the table, we might as well all take the chance to work on our diction and discussion.”

She had in fact told him as much - and it was in large part true - but what she neglected to relay was that everything he might later observe on her dinning room table owed itself to an inquiry Napoleone had inadvertently made far more urgent.

His was not the kind of case a man of Robespierre’s character would find enough interest in on its own or stand for if he did. She might not have enjoyed the same benefits of a secondary education, but Rose was well versed in commerce and conspiracy and here the numbers simply did not add up any way she turned them over. Nothing, she knew, was simply given in bonne Paris and to look at the beggar with whom she strode through the city’s streets, she had her doubts that he would ever be able to suffice whatever price those in power might choose to extract for their pardon.

“And then we arrived,” she continued briskly, “and Eugène was in the midst of proving himself everything Hortense sold him as being on the pitch to her laughter and my mild embarrassment – whatever else he might be, Napoleone knows the game better than you or I ever shall. At a water break, Eugène came over to say hello to Napoleone and to ask me kindly to pretend that I was not his mother for the next hour or so if I didn’t mind,” Rose smirked. “I jested back that I would make no such claims of maternal relation - if he couldn’t seek to make a contribution, I would have to start cheering for the other side, at which point my guest told him whom on that other side to cover, and as we watched this tip improve his game significantly, Napoleone and I returned to such lofty topics as art and literature and dreams that would never come to pass – he had wanted to be a writer or historian but his parents had other plans; I wanted to reach a point where I felt that I was doing better than simply surviving and wished I had processed more personal ambition or the talents it would have taken to achieve such at some early stage in life,” she remembered as wistfully as she had been first relaying this truth to a stranger she had otherwise been deceiving to her own ends, at that point unconscious that he might very well have had the same designs on her – a reality that felt more possible with every minute that passed with his promise to return unkept.

“We went back to mine” Rose continued, “I made Miracoli - feeling it a closer approximation to authenticity than anything I might have otherwise thrown together for my Italian-speaking guest, something we joked about when he compared my ‘cooking’ to that of his mother, unfavourably as you would expect. We elected to watch a film as we ate dessert, he saw on the home screen that we’d watched Napoleon Dynamite recently and we two began an awkward flirtation by quoting the film out of hand. Satisfied that he was already more than acquainted with the more obvious choice cinema, I selected Le Prénom - partially to keep Napoleone laughing, partially because I knew my children would grow tired watching something they only half-understood and would go to bed on time without much fuss, and as he actually never saw it before -can you imagine? Apropos, this is when I found out he did not own a television.

“The film ended, I went back into the kitchen to procure us a digestif and what we had not finished of the dessert from earlier. Upon returning, I found him looking through my bookshelf,” Rose cringed as she again considered implication and the role which she played in creating such realities, “we ended up having a _really_ awkward exchange about Harry Potter -”

“How does that happen?” Theresa knitted her brow.

“He’s never read it. He is _twenty_ which I had all but forgotten in his wit – apparently no one in that age has anything extending a passing familiarity with the story’s general summary, it is only us thirty-somethings and now _our_ kids to have actually committed ourselves to the work but no one in the whole of that half generation between,” she sighed. “We are old, my friend.”

“At least we didn’t waste our youths though,” Theresa shrugged.

“True,” Rose smiled, slightly too conscious that a mere decade separated her from the lines apparent in this action from becoming a permanent feature of her face. “I asked him kind of blankly if he wanted to borrow the series he had been staring at so judgementally, but he told me that he knew what it was about, and having been at boarding school he could not suspend his imagination enough to indulge in that element, he had been picked on severely – French not being his first language and so, taking pity I offered to help him a bit with his still quite poor diction – I trained away my accent, after all, as did you.” Theresa nodded. Rose sighed.

“He and I spent a few hours cuddled under an afghan with our sweet wine and a dose of poetry that we practiced over and over again in syllables and sounds rather than words proper until his metre rendered itself an improved match to our standard.”

She remembered the hesitation that became touch as they studied the same text, the fascination she found the mirrored movements of his lips, in his fixed gaze and the intensity that remained when he shifted his attentions towards her. If she could but call him by another name, if he were but a bit older, if she were younger still, if they were but in a different age altogether, Rose could have easily found herself a victim of Eros’ arrow in Napoleone’s embrace.

But the issue that truly separated their lives from love was far less poetic in spite of its inherent tragedy that would cause the romantics to weep –

Napoleone Buonaparte was a liar like herself.

The tragedy was that he did not seem to recognise this capacity within his own heart.

“I then asked him what he was planning to say for himself in court and he answered he doubted it would get as far as him giving testimony. I told him he would _need_ to, even if it was ‘only’ a hearing and I was bothered by my inclination that he had not seemed to be coached in any way by his solicitor.

“At this point I confessed that I knew Robespierre rather better that I’d like, that he had sent me to prison for crimes my husband allegedly committed during our separation, that Alexandre died in custody under circumstances that have hereunto held my children’s inheritance in the government’s purse while matters are being investigated.

“But people who build prisons never serve time, Theresa, and I have never known Robespierre to be interested in cases like that which Napoleone is facing, full stop. I told him that I knew his lawyer is at present -and frankly, always - in a power conflict with Fouché, for whom there might be some appearance that he is a person of interest, or so I could reasonably assume, being that the inspector enlisted Talleyrand’s expertise in solving a murder, that the two met in a public place to exchange information – here, Parc des Princes on the same day that he himself had arrived back at the stadium for the first time since his embezzlement scheme had become world news.

“‘ _It is all an accident, until it isn’t,’_ I told him, begging him to find other representation, being so forward as to offer to front the bill when Napoleone confided in me that he knew what was going on, he had already met with Talleyrand _and_ with Barras and was not quite as naïve as I would accuse.

“‘ _You really don’t know Paris,_ ’ I told him, ‘ _no one does anyone favours here_ ’ and as these words left my lips he pulled me into a kiss and promised me he had a plan, and he would find me here as soon as the hearing had ended and that he would try asking me out again and this time I would say ‘yes’, curious as he considered I might be at anything he had to report.

“I responded that he was a child and a fool and a number of other horrible truths not directly befitting the situation he was facing and when I was through again pleaded with him to heed my council. He told me that I could not convince him that the people of Paris did not care when I clearly did so much, kissed me once more, took his leave and I’ve not seen him since nor heard anything more on the matter form anywhere, and I have been following the news like a hawk. I think … if I can get Fouché some element of whatever it is he is _actually_ after, maybe I’ll be allowed to beg for Napoleone’s pardon should my suspicions prove correct.”

“And by the way you keep looking toward that door,” Theresa observed, “I think you are either infatuated with the boy on some level or you plan to use him to your own devices should things play out to their admittedly logical conclusion. Maybe a bit of both?”

Rose closed her eyes and considered. “I’ve never been quite this close to deposing Robespierre from his seat of power. I’m sorry for Napoleone – I quite care for him otherwise and will spare him from casualty as much as I might, but his present proximity could well lead to alliances that would accomplish ends worth achieving. Talleyrand must see something in him worth his attention and investment; Barras, or so I gather, seems to have tried to place him in my bed and I can’t help but to suppose that whatever Fouché is taken with poses some challenge to Robespierre’s alleged ‘moral standards’. I’ll take my revenge and that of countless other widows and orphans the man has made and then I’m out. One last job. That is it if I can keep this clean and as of yet it seems that no one else is asking questions, well, no one but Napoleone who still seems to me ignorant to that fact.”

Theresa nodded as she seemed to muse, “You didn’t lie to him exactly, about no one being honest in this town … he just can’t see that the truth has many faces, none of them quite so pretty as he clearly considers yours.”

“Could be,” Rose consented. “So, will you help?”

* * *

“Boise,” the Secretary of Defence said of his holiday travel plans without taking his eyes from his screen. In recent weeks, the man had seldom opened the door separating their two offices and presently held the appearance of not having left his own for days. Abe Woodhull would not have found his boss’ appearance or the tone of his request in any way objectionable were there any honesty to the complaint he often found himself making about the man by way of excuse – that Arnold spent all of his day on personal calls, that his commitment to the office was negligible. But Abe was beginning to suspect that his boss’ reliance on the wisdom of the stars or, at least, on the voice that relayed this spoke to something far more sinister than workshy tendencies or the disillusionment demands from Ankara had recently cast upon The Pentagon by virtue of the attack lain on the Secretary’s youngest son.

“May I ask why, Sir?” Abe Woodhull stammered. He knew. He knew, at least, that the hotline Arnold was in the practice of consulting on matters of state was headquartered in the city. He knew, at least, that any attempt at verifying his suspicions to the point of accusation would come at consequence and cost that his country was in no position to pay.

“I should not need to explain myself,” Arnold barked. “That is what I pay you for. I need to go to Idaho over Thanksgiving, find an excuse for me to be there and make the travel arrangements. Small staff – just yourself and -”

“I … I can’t, Sir,” Abe interrupted, hoping this would prove the end of it. “I have my son and daughter over Thanksgiving. My father -”

“Then you should have put in for leave,” Arnold dismissed.

“It is a federal holiday.”

“Not when you work for the Federal Government.”

“I don’t understand what ‘work’ you want to see done,” Abe challenged with more defiance than he ordinarily trusted himself to express.

“There is a security measure that I need to look into,” Arnold answered. “Personally. No one can know until the matter has been seen to and sorted. I need you to secure me grounds – anything that meets with the Chief’s politics and approval. Make something up if need be, make it public without making it of any interest to the general public. Am I understood?”

It was worse than he had imagined. “Yes, Sir,” Abe swallowed, turning on his heel.

“And Private?” Arnold shifted, “I know what it is like to spend a holiday overseas – missing your loved ones, hell I know what it is like to go trough and ugly divorce as well. You can bring the kids if it suits you.” This sounded more of an order than an offer or an attempt at sympathy.

“Bring my children – _my_ children?” Abe repeated for stress. “With respect, Sir, you really know nothing about me or my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The Papers**
> 
> Arthur describes **The Liverpool Echo** as “[echoing] everything coming out of the City Council with increased volume and just fills in the rest with Jürgen Klopp and the like” … which, fair. My favourite thing about the highly localized paper is that rather than a traditional sport section, they have two – titled Liverpool and Everton, respectively.
> 
> Despite the reputation it owes to its parent publication, the German **Sport Bild** is actually a decent source for such content, often the first to bring relevant stories to print.
> 
> Lest anyone think I only read what I otherwise watch, let’s look at -
> 
>  **The Headlines** (mentioned here)
> 
>  _“if Brexit succeeds, all of the other countries of Europe [will be] shown that the steaks in partnership are not equally shared”_ – it sounds kind of laughable these days since all we do as a world is Corona, but such used to be a legitimate concern of the EU member states. 
> 
> _“appointed with a string of fellow conservatives who shared the same luck in the mortality of their predecessors and the unyielding nature of reactionism long latent.”_ – the names you are searching for are Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh if we are restricting this to the highest level. **In total, Trump has appointed and the Senate has approved 193 Article III, 16 Article I, and 1 Article IV judges. This is apparently why conservatives won’t rise against him as a matter of conscious.**
> 
>  _“unless one happened to be a woman in need of reproductive health services in the richest country in the world”_ \- the case **June Medical Services v Russo** which centres around a state law which requires doctors who perform abortions to have “admitting privileges” at a local hospital could overturn Roe v Wade, in which case 22 states would automatically ban abortion.
> 
>  **Prince Andrew** was implemented in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, resulting in his stepping down from public duties.
> 
> I shamefully can’t be objective enough about **Duchess Meghan** to list every crime she has committed against the institution of monarchy, which is to say that I have a mug with her and Harry’s faces on it. No hint of irony here. I am 100% behind bitches making bank.
> 
> Okay. Moving on …
> 
>  **Culture**
> 
> French children do not have to attend school on **Wednesdays.**
> 
> **Cours préparatoire (C.P.)** is equivalent to kindergarten.
> 
>  **Miracoli** is a boxed spaghetti dinner and it is ah-mazing.
> 
>  **Le Prénom** is a French film about a fight that breaks out over a family dinner when a couple jokingly tells that they are planning to name the son they are expecting “Adolf.” There are both English (“What is in a Name?”) and German (“Der Vorname”) remakes but they are not as good.
> 
> By the way, I used to be in the practice of highlighting and explaining as many of the historical allusions I could fit into a few thousand characters ... but kind of stopped being as my single reader (that I know of) is a professional historian and such feels a redundancy, but if there is any interest I’m happy to resume such practices, just let me know. 
> 
> Speaking of fully redundant statements, comments and kudos are always appreciated. 
> 
> Cheers,  
> Tav


	4. The Conspiracy of Equals (Pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clayton learns he has been played and uses his position to help a new rival settle old scores. Robespierre uses Napoleone to put police resources to waste. Ben takes a road trip with his surrogate. Hanger discovers a new angle in a story that has otherwise failed to hold his interest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so you know all of those drinking memes that have been spreading across WhatsApp in congruence with the Corona virus at circa the same rate of casualty? A few Fridays past, one such challenge entered into my circle of friends and within a few hours we were all tagged and took it up (as Skype discos have already become passé and calling one another out at the end of a two minute video counts as social interaction, I guess) anyway, not twenty minutes after killing a bottle, I got a call from my best friend’s boyfriend (who had just done the same) asking if I was fit to drive as she had just broken her foot trying to take a picture of the sunset from their garden, having accidentally stepped into a rabbit hole (not the fun Wikipedia kind.) I could not, neither could my husband, neither could the ten or so other people we called so she had to ring for an ambulance. 
> 
> I mean, she is fine and taking it in good humour (otherwise I would not be relaying such events) but this is really how we are all going to die, ’innit?
> 
> Hope you all are off making better choices.

The only thing Aberdeen Declesias liked more than the sound of her own voice was taking extended bathroom breaks whenever the opportunity allowed. Ben Tallmadge bit his lip as he passed another road sign advertising a petrol station at the coming exit, wondering if it might be prudent to interrupt his colleague’s extended rant before she took note of the gendered depictions signalling what seemed to be her new favourite pastime.

Too often, he found that the initiative had gotten out ahead of him. It was the last week in November, and ideally he would be spending this time standing in queue at a grocer, picking up the last odds and ends for a Thanksgiving feast, but this scenario pretended that there was still good cheer, or that he would be able to match it if the past several weeks had not served to scatter his would-be guests.

Despite the blame that had fallen upon him without warrant constituted of conscious action on his behalf, part of Ben could not help but to find a sense of reprieve on the drive he was taking from all of the falsities of little consequence that had come to define his day-to-day. In January he would be a father, a fact that thrilled his partner and parents – a reality Ben had not yet been able to emotionally contend as his own. At dinner, glasses would be raised in honour of his successfully spilling himself into a cup, this substance being inserted into a surrogate in a sterile clinic, all phrased to match expectations that he should have rightly shared in.

It helped, of course, that Aberdeen hated him as much as he hated himself and had never had use of a censor when she could instead make a point about identity politics. She had come to America as an au pair, obtained citizenship through what Ben had come to suspect was the usual route of finding herself in a position to threaten public officials, and was now working for him whilst putting herself through law school – both in the capacity of a legal clerk and as a vessel for the continuation of his family name.

He had been with her when his seed had been inserted – the single moment of the experience of expecting that felt real for all of the ways it was not. Ben recalled making some vague statement to that affect and Aberdeen in the same whispered tone responding to stop pretending that he considered there to be anything ‘unnatural’ about the insemination – for people like him (by which she meant something to the effect of ‘Republican’, ‘White’ and ‘Church-Going’ – adjectives she confused with proper nouns and considered synonymous) there was nothing more _natural_ than exploiting a young, penniless woman of colour to ends he did not particularly care to see met. She had then stuck out her tongue to indicate that she had no cause to continue the conversation though what she had said had not strictly been ironic, and while Ben did not press the matter he thought about the phrasing in everything he had since heard on the subject.

Not that he and Aberdeen had cause to speak of such things directly.

She was as emotionally disconnected from their shared effort as he found himself.

Unless, that was, she could use the pregnancy to underline her progressive politics by way of indicating that these were not shared.

When he had asked her to carry a child for him, or ‘ _them_ ’ as he had phrased it or ‘ _Caleb_ ’ as he had more of less meant, Aberdeen had answered ‘ _Okay … so cause the Asian adoption thing din’ work out, you wanna go black now, I got you. But um … don’t think that this isn’t fucking racist just cause white celebrities don’t get the shit they should about referring to their children as a ‘rainbow’ and trying to make more bank out of forcing them out on parade But I mean ... that is something I guess you ‘ave to work out for yourselves. Just don’t expect me to play pretend just cause you two wanna play ‘ouse now._ ’

The fact that she made similar confusions between children and commodities as the Hollywood liberals she had been rather self-righteous in denouncing did not seem to register. Ben, being Republican, White, and Church-Going as he was suspected that he could not cause her to without also being Racist – whatever that actually meant.

Part of him wondered if it might not be preferable to the truths he tried to conceal.

Race had not been his immediate motivation in making the offer, but the contradiction Ben could provide was in its own way just as condemnable; Aberdeen Declesias was undeniably beautiful and the idea that his child also would be outweighed any assessment of her intelligence, strength of character – not only in terms of traits that she might pass on but in terms of how he realised he assessed her as a person, how he viewed women in a more general sense -

Ben hated himself for this, too.

He hated more that contending his flaws would mean confessing them, and he felt he was already being punished for the sum of society’s sins.

“I think the idea that you can’t fill a minute on air absent the phrase ‘Made in Germany’ a … miscalculation of how much you actually talk,” he tried. Frowned. There was no point striving towards such niceties. Aberdeen never did.

She was naturally given to strife and sought it most from those doing their upmost not to invite it, though he was sure she did not see things this way.

She spoke of the revisions a sponsor requested with regard to an add spot than ran on her podcast (and several others Ben actually bothered himself to listen to) with the same fury and virtuosity she brought in the four hours they had been under way to the latest round of sanctions, US-China relations, Abe Woodhull’s _‘paranoid illusions’_ (that she clearly shared at least to the extent that she had insisted on coming on this trip), and the Oakley cycling sunglasses Ben was himself rather fond of but which Aberdeen thought ‘ _did nothing for [their] brand_ ’ – attempting to replace them with cheap aviators she had likely lifted from their last emergency stop - an accusation the former cop did not find himself fit to make, unwilling to invite a discussion about police prejudice, however Aberdeen otherwise embraced her kleptomania in other company.

Part of Ben appreciated her for her inability to share his censor, having increasing few places in his life where honesty was asked; which was not to say that Aberdeen herself extended the question – more, she was always quick with an answer contradicting intention.

Once, he had made the error of calling her a friend.

‘ _We ain’t friends_ ,’ Aberdeen nearly spat in response. ‘ _I can’t ‘ave you goin’ around excusing yo self like ‘It’s okay, I can say things like that, I ‘ave a black friend’ the way you do with Jordan_ , she had imitated in a tone that rang of National Public Radio, ‘ _Bitch, not you don’t! Any qualifying adjective you place before a noun like that completely deprives it of any meaning, and I know I ain’t standing ‘er like some kind of accessory to your bigoted sentiment tryin’ to present as if you woke.’_

 _‘If I call you my ‘disgruntled employee’ instead would the qualifier negate the description?’_ he had challenged. She then smiled and shared his laughter.

But they _were_ friends, Ben knew; absent however Aberdeen might otherwise seek to frame it.

Sometimes and, in particular lately, she was the best he considered himself to have.

For all of the arguments he would never win, at least Aberdeen did not conduct herself in a way that forced Ben to feign excitement for a child he privately wished he had never pretended to want. The most she had ever said on the matter was, _‘You never ask to touch me like everyone else in the office,’_ of the belly that had doubled in the past two months as had her ankles, thighs and ass – realities he wished he did not notice enough to judge. _‘I know I go ‘ard sometimes but um … is it cause … ‘ave you touched a person of colour full stop since what ‘appened with Cicero when you were still a cop? When Mary was pregnant with the twins you wanted to feel them kick, and this isn’t different, at least, it shouldn’t be. It is not a criticism of your personal conduct, I just … you kind of need to get over that before the baby actually comes. Enthusiastic as Caleb is, I don’t think any of us really know ‘ow far he is capable of actually ‘andling a child.’_

That had been in her fifth month. He had yet to take her up on the offer.

Ben was not ready to have a child for reasons he could not explicitly define. The progression of his partner’s sclerosis, however, reduced their window for starting a family to the immediate.

In the past year, Caleb had been forced onto disability owing to his tremors. While they had talked prior in ways Ben had not equated with planning about one day adopting, the conversation now centred on Caleb’s desire to help care for the child rather than leaving Ben to nurse them both.

Ben was, however, growing increasingly certain that such would in fact become his fate.

He tried not to think about it.

The problem was, he never found himself in conversations that did not address the inevitable in ways so optimistic as to punish him for his failure to look forward to a future he knew would be filled with personal anguish.

No one, that was, save for Aberdeen, who normally only spoke of her pregnancy as it related to her need of a water closet and the size of her clothing.

“I ‘avent shaved my legs though since … second trimester at least,” she considered, “And Peggy doesn’t shave theirs anymore, full stop. The spot is pre-recorded, and Arry’s ‘as been pretty reliable as far as advertisers go – I’m just, like it is ridiculous, now we ‘ave to re-record because Trump doesn’t understand sanctions. I know you voted for him and shit, but you ever stop and try to calculate ‘ow much of our lives ‘ave been wasted in response to the president’s non-existent grasp on economic policy?”

“I know you are not accusing the Commander and Chief of having small hands,” Ben snorted. “Hands … grasp? Get it?”

“Oh, can we pull over?” Aberdeen asked as they approached the exit Ben had hoped to avoid, “I ‘ave to pee, I just remembered.”

“You went fifteen minutes ago,” he countered, “Can it wait? I want to get to Boise before close of business and at this rate -”

“No,” Aberdeen dismissed with the same annoyance that always defined her tone, “you don’t want to be reminded that you are about to be a father in any way it presents, but not tryin’ to match your levels of drama and internal strife or anything, I don’t want to pee in a rental.”

“What makes you say that?” Ben swallowed as he merged onto the exit ramp.

“I don’t even. You are already up in ‘ere telling dad-jokes, so I think you’ll be a’ight. ‘ _Ands … grasp, get it?’_ ” Aberdeen imitated with an eye roll. “I, ‘owever, won’t be unless we stop soon.”

“Alright. Fine,” Ben sighed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Long as you pull over whenever I need to go to the little girl’s without complaint,” Aberdeen seemed to shrug.

“Do you think I’ll be a good father?” Ben blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Do you want to know the gender?” Aberdeen asked almost hopefully in response. The secret, he realised, was probably killing her to keep.

“No, I know myself well enough to act on such information and as such don’t see that to leading to anything but another debate on gender roles and preferred pronouns and I just haven’t the energy for it. I could _buy_ the energy for it, granted,” he considered, “but we are still a long way from Idaho and the amount of coffee and Red Bull it would take to get you to admit that you’re opinion is as irrelevant on such issues as my own would cause our bathroom breaks to double.”

“’Ow is that?”

“I don’t think I need to explain bodily functions to a woman made victim to her own,” Ben tried to smirk.

“You know that is not what I meant,” Aberdeen demanded. Evidently, she alone could get away with framing private truths as shared irony.

“Answer my question and then I will answer yours.”

“Okay … thing is, you are kind of missing the point of this whole Cicero thing. Abigail and Jordan aren’t mad at you and Mr Woodhull for putting ‘im into that kind of predicament because ee ‘appens to be _black_ , they mad because he is _fifteen_ ,” she empathised, “and your dumbasses had him following up on … I would say ‘lead’ but it weren’t even that. Just Mr Woodhull finding a construct for his paranoia that fits ‘is personal narrative and putting a kid into a potentially dangerous situation based on that same impulse. For once _you_ are the one tryin’ to make this about race when it ‘as nothing to do with that. I mean … I’m pissed that Cicero, Pip and Thea were all implemented in something us adults should ‘ave sorted, sure, as I rightly should be, but I’m equally mad that Thomas, and then Marie and Atty overseas got mixed up in this and that now that most of them are old enough to ‘ave something to lose, you people tried to threaten them with knowledge of a deed that you should ‘ave stepped up on in the first place. So. That is it, I guess. Your turn.”

Ben bit his lip. He had nothing to do with the request Abe made of his business partner’s step-son upon learning that the child in question had been invited to something as outwardly innocent as a birthday party, and had he know about it, Ben liked to think he would have moved to shut down the manoeuvre – not, that he acknowledged, he would have stood a chance in doing so. Cicero, he considered, would have been more likely to press matters further if he knew him to be against it – perhaps rightly so. Ben had not done enough to prove himself a personally ally to the boy or anyone else, whatever his professional interests.

He had left the police force after the incident and gone into private law, presently pursuing charges against the institution that had forced his hand and threatened sanity in the name of security. The bulk of his gestures however, remained knowingly empty. Ben Tallmadge forced a smile where he would quite rather scream, and his company was given to interpreting the falsehoods that had come to define his demeanour as a series of disgusting ‘-isms’ manifest, all of which were easier to embrace than a truth Ben found far darker –

His unborn child was an apology for the resentment he bore the man he loved.

Sometimes he found himself waking up in the middle of the night wondering if he had known two years prior that Caleb’s condition would determinate so quickly as it had if he would have ever opened his heart to him.

He never had to answer this question or bring it to light because he was ‘Racist’, ‘Sexist’, ‘Religiously Bigoted’, ‘White’, ‘Male’, ‘Privileged’ and because he had happened to have voted for Donald Trump, which was at least something he had no grounds to dispute. There were days when he imagined that everyone in Setauket hated him and these mostly came as a comfort for it saved him some measure of energy in actively hating himself.

“Aberdeen, I think more needs to be said -”

“Fine,” she interrupted with force, “I don’t think you are going to be a good father. I said it. ‘Appy?”

Hearing his own thoughts spoken hurt more than he had anticipated. “Why then would you agree to carry-”

“Because Caleb will be,” she said sharply, evidence, Ben took, that she had struggled with the same question for some considerable time. “Anyway it is not like this kid isn’t going to ‘ave me around to tell it that he can’t stand too close to middle-aged white women on the subway, or to avoid statements like ‘I know my rights’ with the police because most likely they themselves _don’t_ and will see such as a threat -”

“Do you ever think of … keeping it?” Ben broke in.

Aberdeen blinked. “Not like … directly, but uh – you know this thing with André? Like … when Arnold asked Mr Woodhull to join ‘im at Thanksgiving and bring his kids, but he probably only meant Jeanne and we all kind of _know_ that? Well, Peggy was ‘appy to give the child up to adoption but when they found out that its biological father might be back in the picture, they kind of flipped and that is why I am ‘ere, calm them down a bit. It will probably be like _that_ … with me I mean, if you keep on not caring about this baby. I’m not looking to get all mom’d up ‘ere before I’ve even got a ring on my finger, but that is just nature. But you’ll pull your shit together,” she tried to reassure him or, perhaps, herself. “You always do. Volunteered for this, didn’t you?”

The only thing that would have been worse than a Thanksgiving where everyone created cause to pretend that they were happy was the table emptied by a statement presented as though it had been uttered in passing. Peggy Shippen, Ben’s other intern and Aberdeen’s partner in all things (however she tried to distant herself from the physical parameters and implications therein) had met John André on a single occasion and had been coursed into sharing his bed the night then-Senator Arnold went missing, herself becoming a person of interest in the disappearance until exonerated by evidence that reviled André as having used her name and likeness to begin a flirtation with the elected official in an attempt to win influence over him.

Any interest Peggy personally had in men (if she had in fact ever had any interest beyond perceived societal expectation - something Ben doubted based on nothing beyond her reactions to him personally) ceased in congruence with the knowledge of the extent to which she had been misused.

At some point early on in the pregnancy that ensued from the briefest of affairs, Peggy Shippen had decided that she was done with a body she had stopped being able to identify as her own. Though to this day still pretty as she had ever been, when her daughter was born – adopted by the Woodhull’s who had delayed their divorce for this single purpose, Mary in particular not wanting to put a child through the same system of foster care that had raised her – Peggy had the implants that had been inserted into her chest when she was far too young to give consent and therefore far too young to be sexualised in any fashion removed. She had undergone additional outpatient procedures since and altered her diet, dress, and daily workout regimen to the effect that she presented as male. Ben suspected that she was on supplements of some kind based on conversations that had not been meant for his ears (largely involving Peggy’s personal enjoyment of her swollen, sensitive genital paired with her girlfriend’s willingness to offer her multiple rounds of stimulation based on her own hormonal changes), but none of this, he knew, was any of his business.

It was less Aberdeen’s business than she sought to make it through a series of labels Peggy herself did not use. Ben felt protective of this, if only for the fact that he needed to remind himself that his colleague, was, in fact, a woman, and that it was fully wrong of him to appreciate her more than his other female employees based on perceptions that held no bearing, based on gender at all.

“Peggy … didn’t change her pronouns and hates that you’ve decided to on her behalf,” he told Aberdeen.

“One could argue that no one gets to pick their labels, but everything Peggy is, they chose, whether they can admit it or not.”

“She still identifies as female whatever she presents, and you should respect that.”

Aberdeen, to the extent of his knowledge had never been with anyone but Peggy.

Things were serious between them.

Ben knew Peggy planned to propose at Christmas if only because such was an open secret. He also knew that Aberdeen very much planned to accept. For months the Haitian had been attending Bible Study at his father’s church so that she could be baptised and Peggy could wed within the faith; but what Aberdeen could not consent to though to Ben it seemed so insignificant by way of contrast was the admission that she was herself queer.

Ben knew the homophobia of self-hatred too well to be as critical as he felt towards his passenger.

His anger, he considered in the observation of how white his knuckles had grown clutching the wheel as he turned into the car park of a petrol station, had at least something to do with the fact of the physical attraction he felt towards Aberdeen’s significant other, finding himself grow stiff in afternoon phantasies around her physicality despite the disgust he felt at his own mental objectification of someone who had done everything to absolve herself of such, despite a relationship he was otherwise committed enough to as to agree to having a child he did not otherwise want that his boyfriend’s anguish lessen.

Ben half-wondered at the extent to which the daughter Peggy had born John André post-mortem defined his intentions of driving out to meet him had to do with the gross attractions to the child’s biological mother on which he would never otherwise act.

In a way, he considered, they were a family. Him, Caleb, Peggy, Aberdeen, the child Peggy did not otherwise acknowledge, and the one Ben was almost loath to.

“You are having a boy,” Aberdeen told him curtly before she got out of the car.

They were a family.

This was a fight.

But at least Ben was seated in a rental and not at a Thanksgiving table.

He closed his eyes and imagined his internal life bearing a closer resemblance to the values he claimed before retuning himself to the unrealistic scenario of Peggy positioning herself compromisingly in the same bed he otherwise thought of in terms of his actual boyfriend soon being ridden to. His jeans felt tighter and, in this sensation, he began to feel a bit sick. Seeing no sign of Aberdeen, he grabbed his long woollen coat from the boot to better disguise his own unwanted anatomy and went inside in search of a warm beverage to break his nervous sweat.

* * *

There was nothing worse than ordering coffee when beer was on offer.

No, George Hanger began to reconsider as the boy continued to speak, there was nothing worse than being sober during a business meeting whatever the circumstance but here felt particular.

He looked from the large window where he was seated past backward-facing letters in a language he did not understand to the Prius he had an unfortunate habit of misplacing for months on end, wondering if it would be towed were he to give into his urge to dilute his frustrations in something forty-proof and hop an ICE to Paris rather than continue on the road, wondering if he would ever find it again in the mess that was Marseilles if the proprietor saw no cause to call in a truck. He took another look at the menu before glancing out of the window once more in hopes of spotting a fire hydrant, - lane or some other sure bet that his vehicle would be accordingly dealt with to no success. If a blaze were to break out in this back ally the whole of it would burn to ash - which, he considered, would be just as well. Even if the café were otherwise logistically equipped to be saved, it was not as though emergency service would have any more luck than he had actually finding it.

“Would you care for another?” the boy he had come to meet asked in an all-too-enunciated English that sounded if it were trained by costume drama and phantasy epic, but this, perhaps, owed more to the ideas espoused rather than language, tone or pace. ‘Brutus’, as he called himself online in reference to Julius Caesar’s supposed last words was, much to Hanger’s disappointment, a lanky fourteen-year-old with terrible posture who squinted when he spoke in a way that confessed his clear need for prescription lenses. Brutus was as engaged as he had been over their three weeks of email correspondence; Hanger however was fully uninterested in playing a Game of Thrones with someone whose interests and energies ought to demographically be more in line with stopping the world from burning than starting fires of his own.

He raised his hand for the barmaid and said something in French that caused her to appear at their table with a silver try with two shot glasses of grappa. The girl, either expecting a tip or somehow conscious that her guest was half-blind positioned her small chest in direct view of Brutus’ beady eyes that he could not mistake what it was he was meant to be appreciating, and, twisting a strand of hair that had fallen free of her long blondish ponytail began to giggle at something he said in producing a fiver from his battered wallet. Maybe, Hanger thought, he had a condom placed conveniently where someone old enough to have an ID where a school crest and lunch number did not feature would carry it behind a thin strip of clear plastic. The boy smiled, at least, as though this were the case and the girl laughed as though this would not go any further than phantasy. It was probably a Trojan, Hanger reasoned, and for all of his borrowed bravado, the lad would likely be given to nervously reciting Homer if the night should find him with his clothes off – this night, or one at some point during what Hanger was beginning to assume would be a long stint in academia –

Though ‘Brutus’, he supposed in the same thought with some measure of disgust, was the kind of bore who would even go so far as to attend lecture.

Such effort was condemnable in Hanger’s eyes, but in this case, it might do the boy some measure of good. He shuttered all the same, recalling fully nothing of the curriculum he had a degree claiming him to have read at the halfway prestigious Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen which now hung somewhere in Hamburg – not, it should be noted, at his office at Bild, but rather in a sex club on the Reeperbahn that he heard had since changed hands since he’d traded it to the proprietor for a lap dance, a litre, and half a bag of rotisserie chicken flavoured crisps which was all he frankly remembered of his time as a student, anyway.

“We fellow journalists have to help each other out,” the lad said, raising his glass. Hanger downed his own without toasting, took the shot from Brutus’ pinched fingers before the boy could bring it to his lips, and, bidding farewell to his Prius for what he assumed would be an age unto itself, swallowed once more.

“Look, Hilde – meaning no disrespect, shouldn’t you be out with your classmates right now advocating for societal and behavioural changes to halt climate change or something? Wouldn’t your time be better spent echoing the status quo than -”

“Hilde?” the lad’s eyes narrowed to a slit.

Of course he would have to explain the reference. “As in Lysiak,” Hanger frowned. “She is an American journalist who, not unlike yourself, is like _nine_ and -”

“So, you have read my piece then?” the boy smiled expectantly. Hanger had been sent ten single spaced pages concerning a provincial by-election that that become a contest of sport when one of the candidates purchased sponsorship rights of a local Sunday-league side, whose opening match of the season coincided with the polling booths being opened and ended with more bookings than Hanger had seen recorded in a single match, at least since the Breakup of Yugoslavia. Oh! Those were the days! But where was the fun in reminiscence when one of the parties was too young to have so much as have heard of the event at school?

He had been able to verify the facts as they had been presented, but suspected Brutus of erroneously adding much of the drama that had hooked him as one was wont to at that age. He could not publish the work as it was and too many memes had been born from the match to warrant his time giving the piece a thorough edit for print.

He suspected that he was about to be pitched an alternative, but of this, too, he remained wary. As the editor of a weekly newspaper of some regard in the sporting world, a contributor to multiple international publications – many of which had won him awards, Hanger received correspondence from such hopefuls daily and whatever the pitch, the payoff from following up such leads was as infrequent as it was unreliable.

He knew what he was meant to say in such a situation was simply ‘keep writing’ but he was not speaking to the hungry university student he had once been and saw reborn in many he met. Brutus was a child – one who did not simply want to go to the match but who wanted to insinuate a riot. He spoke. “Hence my advice that if you want to initiate change you would be better served taking to the streets than sitting in smoke-filled bars that would cause your eyes to water if you hazarded them to open – which isn’t me being metaphoric,” he clarified, “I’ve been watching you squint for the whole of this past half hour and it is beginning to distress me. Do you ordinarily wear glasses?”

Brutus blinked and phrased clumsily, “Do you see that girl over there? The one who brought us drinks?”

“Do you? Honest question. I mean she’s cute, that much I’ll, oh, okay, okay -” Hanger held up his hands in surrender upon seeing the lad in the thick frames he produced from the pocket of his school blazer, “my sympathies. I probably should not be telling you this, but when you are actually old enough for this to serve as some consolation, I’ve always found that sex is better when you are buying it.”

Brutus blinked rapidly as he replaced his spectacles in his jacket, either from adjustment or embarrassment, Hanger could not tell. “You mean from -”

With that, Hanger took his phone from his pocket, did a search on train times and before the site loaded continued, “You don’t happen to know how to get to the Hauptbahnhof do you?”

“I’ll confess I don’t know what that is.”

“Train station,” Hanger said after a moment of careful thought, wondering at how easily the simplest words escaped his mind when he found little place to use them. He had been living in Germany without commitment since he was in his late teens. Now in his mid-thirties with Brexit on the horizon and an economic downturn to follow every deadline and delay until such point, he had half a mind to apply for citizenship, wondering if trading a lion for an eagle would help him forget other standard phrases in his mother tongue. He found it vaguely annoying that this boy spoke what must have been his fourth language better than Hanger knew his first and began to wonder if his godchild in Scotland whose own English was atrocious was with the benefit of age making any progress with the book of Märchen he had brought her as an early birthday present.

“So,” Brust answered, “just to be clear. I might not be leading a march right now, but I managed to reduce your CO2 emissions.”

“I drive a fucking hybrid, good job,” Hanger rolled his eyes. “Do me a favour though, you live around here, right? Call your local authority, tell them that I’m parked illegally and get my vehicle towed that I might stand a shot of locating it when I pass back through. I must have spent two hours - without exaggeration – driving in circles trying to find this place. Neither my navigator nor Google Maps could place the address and again, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, but I would rather not spend more time in Marseilles than need be.”

“Same,” the lad nodded. “I live here – that is, upstairs. If you don’t feel fit to drive, you could stay the night. I could come with you, to Paris. I could get you and interview with my brother and you could take me with you to the police station in exchange.”

It was just as Hanger had expected.

“Your brother … not exactly my beat. Again, meaning no disrespect, Luciano,” he addressed him by his given name, “but Napoleone is nothing more than an internet meme who has already managed to become passé.”

“He’s done his badges -”

“So, he can coach kids your age now?” Hanger poised. “Christ … not something I would wish to be tasked with, but that isn’t exactly difficult to accomplish, even with the criminal record you seemed to have actively worked to ensure. Hell, mate of mine has the same distinction, albeit at the YMCA rather than PSG - and John was the primary suspect for a good long while back when Senator Arnold was abducted,” he paused abruptly, considering, “again, you are probably too young to remember or catch the reference,” he sighed, shaking his head.

“It was two years ago,” the lad said flatly though his strange eyes were aflame with excitement. “Reading your article on Arnold, André and his research is the only reason I’m remotely interested in sport, because … just, examining and extrapolating the data that has been made available since, I don’t think the story ends in June 2016, I think -”

“You are interested in sport because of my column rather than your brother’s misadventures in the industry?” Hanger could not help but to smirk. “I dare say, Luciano, I’m beginning to feel as though you are trying to seduce me. Buying me drinks, inviting me up to your flat for the night, giving my journalistic endeavours undue praise – call me in maybe five years. Can’t promise I’ll be any more interested than I am in this moment, but then I’d be the last to claim myself as having standards. Still, you are way too young. For any of this,” he emphasised, suddenly devoid of his usual humour. “Grow up, grow disillusioned about politics before trying you hand at the craft. Keep writing, sure … but maybe don’t post anything again until you are old enough to cringe at your current screenname?” he squinted as his voice trained into a squeak. “Just a suggestion.”

“Like you say” ‘Brutus’ seemed careful in considering, “it isn’t exactly impressive, what Napoleone has achieved. When I wrote about his exploits, the tone I took was an homage to your regular column.”

“That didn’t escape my notice.”

“But?”

“Look, kid – everything I know about John André’s failed project I put into the article I did years back: he was a military contracted researcher tasked to find a way of exploiting stress – post-traumatic and otherwise – to strategic benefit. He tested his methods on a Sunday league football team and when the project’s funding was cut after one of its subjects nearly took his own life in an unrelated incident, André began catfishing an American senator by way of trying to renew his influence over him. Can’t say it worked out though being as Arnold met the fists of one of the players who as a result of the study was easily provoked, another held him captive for weeks, another still slit the throat of a teammate in a moment of panic, and one went on to become the symbol of Scottish secession, so um … don’t think it is exactly a stretch to say the entire project was scrapped and since disavowed by all of its backers.

“You can always find some kind of conspiracy theory online about how the US Armed Force ostensibly put it into practice, but I promise you such is unfounded. I was in America when all of this went down, even before my article hit the press McConnell refused to take a vote on the defence package in which it was contained. In the unlikely chance that Obama passed the measure by Executive Order before leaving office, Trump’s first order of business would have been undoing such action as he has since erased every other legacy of the predecessor. If Trump moved on it instead, well, that would be in out Twitter feed, would it not?”

“That is hard to dispute on its face,” the boy countered, “but my concern is that some of these conspiracy theorists you’d cite currently hold public office. You’ve covered about 40 transfer windows if my maths don’t deceive me, you know that something doesn’t necessarily need to be true for people to align themselves as though it were, to act and make errors based on something that hold no bearing.”

“Well, that is not to be disputed.”

“If you take me to Paris or … or if you would just talk to Robespierre about these matters on my behalf, you could get ahead of those who see our civil liberties as something to exploit to their own ends. I only brought up my brother because I thought … the Ministère Public acting as his solicitor in this whole thing with the club paying his wage, so that might serve as a cover, or pay for your time and effort if the story I’ve been working on fails to incentivise in its own right,” he tried. Succeeding, nearly, or at least bringing himself closer to that end.

“Wait … why would Robespierre be stepping to your brother’s defence?” Hanger asked in genuine interest.

“Luck more than anything,” Luciano admitted. “Originally it was our intention to have our brother Giuseppe handle the conflict with Napoleone’s employer, but as it worked out, on his return to Parc des Princes, Joseph Fouché was in the VIP lounge trying to get Talleyrand to expand on … another article that you wrote actually – the one where you interviewed the game’s elite against the ruling class to determine if Football Manager really does know more about Brexit than Westminster.”

“Well … shit.”

“Anyway, Fouché was tasked with oversight giving that the Gendarmerie’s atrocities at the match were so out of line with their assignment that it would not be politically correct to handle the matter internally – and given Napoleone’s role and just the timing of everything, Robespierre seems to be labouring under the assumption that Talleyrand was interested in my brother as a potential client. He wasn’t, I don’t think. He is now. But that is kind of beside the point. Napoleone is happy enough under Saliceti -”

“Really can’t imagine why,” Hanger snorted.

“I don’t know,” Luciano shrugged, continuing with a contradiction, “Saliceti is corrupt, sure, he is a sport agent – but he’s not ‘let me help the Directeur Général exploit paranoia in and about Washington as a ground to overhaul the inner workings of our own military’ kind of corrupt the way Talleyrand is. Fouché thinks – and I _know_ this because he told Robespierre as much and then Robespierre told my brother and my brother told me, that DGSE has eyes on John André – the same to appear in your reporting, the same who was allegedly murdered shortly after the original operation went so south that we ended up in a war in Mali thanks in part to ministerial incompetence.

“Apparently, Arnold is in daily communication with the man, but he might not be wise to it – and okay, okay, I get that this all sounds dramatic and conspiratorial but understand, please, that I’m explaining it in this way because there is a time frame at play here over which no one here has any influence. Trump is threatening a government shutdown and when he does, Fouché believes that someone in Washington will talk – an editorial, an interview, a memoir, anything to keep food on the table when their salary stops. When that happens, well I’m sure Fouché has a speech ready for his brothers at the lodge -”

“God, _of course_ the Free Masons are in this,” Hanger nearly laughed. “You almost had me. Nice try.”

“Fouché is _in_ the Free Masons,” Luciano told him flatly, “you can look it up, it is on his Wikipedia page, it is not like it is a secret. So are half of our elected representatives. It is gross, but it is what it is. If I can continue?”

“Please,” Hanger gestured, still fighting the urge to smile in a way he knew would be taken as cruel.

“It is not as though the argument I suspect him of being prepared to give doesn’t make sense. Minimal investment for maximised outcome, the retention rate on service personnel would negate the drought in recruitment, thereby meeting our NATO requirements. That is all well and good, if it were not for the detrimental effects in civilian life – crime rates in the States have exploded since these measures are believed to have been implemented, and we know the response, a rise in policing and with it, police brutality.

“Say all of this is a fabrication of the paranoid minds of Washingtonians ready to lose their livelihoods – it could be, I’m myself not convinced or particularly committed to the specifics,” the boy claimed though Hanger suspected otherwise, “but I know what will happen if our police force is given authority to behave as though what is unfolding in America in terms of civil unrest is about to reach France. But if we get out ahead of it, we could stop it” he seemed to plead. “It would help though, having someone as widely read and respected as yourself onside.”

Hanger thought on it and decided it could not hurt either way. If there was anything to what the Buonapartes were supposing, he would have the cover of Welt or Süddeutsche Zeitung, if not, he would have a far more entertaining feature in his own publication than anything he had seen written up about ‘Napoléon’ until this point – it would be absolutely mad if a famous prosecutor had in fact wound up defending him because of conspiracy theories born out of something he published about an amateur side in the States years back!

“Na ... geil,” he mused, picturing a series of journalistic prises he had yet to be awarded next to the ones he already possessed (and whose cash prizes he had largely spent) on a shelf he imagined as being dusted – something else he supposed he would have to sort in the near future. “I’ll take you to Paris, Luciano. But you are going to give me an interview on the way up.”

“Me? No – Napoleone is the one who -”

“How much of this did you and your brothers have planned? It has been a month; you’ve toppled local government and seem to have gotten yourselves entangled in espionage at the highest level.”

“Been a month for the press,” the boy shrugged. “For us it has been longer.”

Something in this statement was unsettling. Hanger ordered himself another shot.

* * *

“You sure you don’t want to split this?”

“Hm?” Maximillian Robespierre looked up from his screen at the half-eaten takeaway whose plastic container was being tapped at irrhythmically with single-use chopsticks. “No, I told you, I have a thing tonight.”

“I know you said you had ‘a thing’, but that was nearly two hours ago,” Louis Saint Just began to contradict, “and you’ve not made any indication of moving on it – moving at all. What is worse is I can hear your stomach cry out for my takeaway -” his assistant said with a dramatic air and a gesture more suited to opera than the office.

“That bad?” Robespierre raised his eyebrows before returning his gaze to his screen, looking quickly at the clock in his command bar to confirm a statement he knew he had no cause to question. He and his colleague spent much of their days and most of their evenings in this rhythm, working from the same desk to create a false sense of company - occasionally comparing notes, occasionally making comments out of hand that spoke nothing of what was meant. What Saint Just wanted to say, or so Robespierre could reasonably infer, was that he did not want to be left alone to review jurisprudence against a hypothesis that could cause a multitude of civil cases to come up for appeal an ocean away.

This was not to say that Saint Just objected to the work on its own merits, but rather resented the creeping thought with which he found himself threatened via inevitable comparison. Robespierre’s personal geography extended these four walls; his colleague, by contrast would be here all night, which was something of a shame. He was far too young to be quite so single purposed and as such Robespierre often had the feeling that he was failing his friend by serving him in a supervisory role.

Robespierre opened his mouth to say ‘thank you’ to his most loyal and trusted associate in language instead proposing they take a proper break together and put on a pot of coffee, but his phone buzzed again with a text before he could make the offer. Saint Just’s gaze fell upon the device like the blade of a guillotine and Robespierre, feeling slightly awkward about the whole affair, swiped to ignore.

“Hm,” his colleague continued of his plea taking the dual tone of concern and critique. He passed a half-eaten bowl of rice, veg, and tofu itself so drenched in sweet-sour sauce that it was nearly possible to forget it was not real meat before him. Robespierre eyed the bean-cube and Saint Just with a scepticism he did not need to directly voice. His assistant was proving disconcertingly good at playing to politics.

Saint Just had relocated to Paris two years prior with the idea that the state did little of anything in terms of prosecuting the cases it brought after seeing too many examples in the news of perceptions of tolerance serve as a contradiction to criminal law. He had been rambunctious, wildly handsome, almost profoundly languid even when judged against the absent standard that defined the profession at that time, and while he was always lavish with praise for Robespierre personally, the Ministère Public held him in little regard until a few short months into his position, Saint Just came upon a rather cunning strategy for implementing the law as it had been written.

In a meeting, he had remarked with some scorn that France in general and Paris in specific was loath to bring charges against anyone who did not fit the profile of an enemy of the Republic, which he saw as being defined too narrowly as the extreme right. Everyone who broke the law, he argued, was by definition an adversary to the values of liberté, égalité, fraternité for which the blood of far better men had been spilt and he was unsatisfied with simply issuing citations in response to the public mood. He began going after leftists, Salafists, Marxists, environmentalists, pacifists, and labour union organisers with a ferocity ordinarily only employed when the alleged perpetrator of an offence was almost universally offensive in ideology. To accomplish this without attracting the criticism of his would-be political allies, Saint Just effectively painted a swastika on everyone he put on trial, something Robespierre had been surprised to discover could hardly be considered a feat. His pitch to the press was so conform to what they were otherwise given to print that no journalist had yet question the premise of the argument on its face, though Saint Just was himself at risk of becoming controversial –

A British tabloid had dubbed him ‘The Angle of Death’, to which Saint Just calmly and with great purpose made a point of buying falafel from a street vendor and commenting when questioned that he had been a vegetarian since seeing some chickens in cages as a teenager – likely an apothecial framing of a documentation that ARTE had in rotation – but one that played on empathy most appreciated but did not exercise and a national symbol of France that the excesses of which Saint Just had been accused were either forgotten or excused.

Robespierre did not know if Saint Just had been a vegetarian before finding his ends under attack. Part of him liked to imagine his friend was as honest, pure and well-intentioned as he presented; part of him wanted to think of him as possessing a political instinct which Robespierre knew himself to lack.

Whatever the case might be, however, he would never be keen on tofu no matter how kindly it was offered.

“Thank you, but really, it has been sorted,” he said, his involuntary sneer turning to a sly smile. “I ordered Indian and it should be here within the next half hour. Then I’ll finish up and walk home -”

“I thought your girl wanted to cook,” Saint Just snorted.

“Hence the takeaway,” Robespierre shrugged. “No, she is working on her thesis and baking – or burning – off some of the stress. Most likely she’ll have set the kitchen timer, gone back to the living room table where her books have set up camp, put her earbuds in without any consideration to what she’d just taken a short break to accomplish and first be reminded of her side-project when the fire alarm rings. I’ll come home to open windows and broken explanations that will excuse my tardiness without my having to say a word, eat a quick meal while looking over a few pages of what Cornélie’s written this afternoon before carrying her upstairs and enjoying … dessert, shall we say,” he smiled. Saint Just’s pretty face pickled for a moment in revulsion, likely the result of involuntarily imagining the act to which had been alluded. 

“And then she will fall asleep and you’ll try to,” the younger man continued once he had collected himself, “but you’ll end up snaking back downstairs, rewrite a few sentences that were bothering you, put a pot of coffee on and come back to your desk, thinking yourself to have satisfied domestic obligations.”

“Precisely,” Robespierre gave.

Saint Just shook his head. “This is why I don’t date.”

“Which part?”

“Run on sentences with confused comma usage. But um,” Saint Just pressed his lips together in hopes of supressing the urge to smile as he took another glance at Robespierre’s mobile, “romantic though I so _clearly_ am, I still just can’t believe anyone would think to ask you for dating advice, mate. Or that you think yourself in any position to give it.”

“How is that?” Robespierre blinked. “It is actually going quite well,” he considered, skimming the messages he had ignored a few minutes prior, further clarifying for his colleague, “for us, I mean. Napoleone is to be pitied, of course, but he has yet to figure that much out for himself and as such seems to be having a good time.”

Saint Just adjusted his posture and in a far less causal tone began to offer his critique, “I don’t – I still don’t understand why you took this case the begin with. There is absolutely no grey area here, the man broke the law -”

“And made himself a distraction to our internal enemies in the process,” Robespierre explained, attempting to mentor a man he did not otherwise consider in need of such efforts. “Don’t get caught up confusing tactic for compromise - moral or otherwise. Have I mentioned who he is attempting to court?”

“Not in so many words, no,” Saint Just answered, crossing his arms in something of a pout.

“Rose Tascher.”

“Name says absolutely nothing to me.”

“Her married name of de Beauharnais then might.”

“Holy shit,” Saint Just whispered, dropping some of his theatrics along with his jaw.

“Near the end of the hearing this Friday past,” Robespierre continued, reasonably satisfied with the reception this far, “Napoleone was growing visibly nervous though we had all but won. I attempted to reassure him and he in turn told me it wasn’t that, his anxiety was born form his having promised a girl he would ring when the proceedings had concluded. He was worried she would grow cross with him should he delay for much longer. I told him to leave it be, absence makes the heart grow fonder -”

“A principle that has been working for you for about three years,” Saint Just remarked. Robespierre had no cause the suspect the admiration he enjoyed from his colleague to truly be the infatuation that so many in the office were quick to accuse, but Saint Just took some measure of personal offence in any indication that Robespierre’s life extended his work load. He liked Éléonore Duplay enough as far as Robespierre could tell, and he supported and echoed the couple’s objections to marriage (both as a religious sacrament and a means of tax evasion), but he managed to find critique whenever the chance arose to separate the relationship from a statement of politics that Robespierre did not necessarily consider himself as making for its own volition. The Ministère Public had heard about enough of his associate’s smug denunciations for the evening. He had worked all through the past weekend and would be going home for a few hours, likely to have a version of the conversation he had would have had Saint Just engaged in were it not for the younger man’s inability to keep his petty envies in check. He looked from the pile of paperwork before him to the calendar under his control, deciding that he could probably spare Saint Just for two days, sending him to court in hopes that the cool fresh air or a walk across the courtyard would be of some befit to his humours.

“You seek to mock but look at how jealous and possessive you’ve been since I mentioned that I had plans with the person I’m actually dating. I’m sure you will – out of spite if nothing else - finish compiling your list of rulings that stand to be over turned and have a full report of the financial strain and perspective social implication such would place on the US Judiciary should claim and credence be given to the intelligence Fouché may well be working to expose.”

“I suppose that is fair.”

“Have you taken a single day of your vacation this year?” Robespierre raised an eyebrow as he continued to examine the coming schedule. “You realise the law requires you to take at least one two-week block for convalescence?”

“I take it the reunion went well?” Saint Just evaded.

“You have until the first of March to use your remaining days, otherwise we’ll both have to deal with HR -”

“Just block something out in January when the tourists are all gone,” Saint Just answered without truly hearing him, “and until then, go on defending your advice and involvement in this unholy union -”

“You are simultaneously my best and worst employee, you realise that, right?”

“Two years and counting, and you are a shit boss, too, by the by. Love you for it though,” Saint Just said as he reached for Robespierre’s mobile.

“This will make you love me more,” Robespierre smiled as his friend skimmed, “I had him order a bunch of Pixie Stix off Amazon, and go into her shop where it would be unlikely that she would make a scene, telling her something to the effect of _‘I did not want to arrive without a present, and hadn’t quite calculated that with Christmas fast approaching the post would slow – since my last bouquet failed to impress, I brought you this,’_ ” he gestured.

“Is that how you think people from Corsica talk?” Saint Just asked, doing his best not to laugh at an imitation that was admittedly not Robespierre’s best.

“No, he’s ethnically Italian. Comes from one of those immigrant households where the parents don’t bother themselves speak French and the children enter school with a deficit they never quite overcome.”

“Tragic,” Saint Just said without inflection, “What is a Pixie Stick?”

“It is an American thing, coloured sugar in a straw as I understand. Tascher, naturally, knows of our connection,” he explained, “even went as far to warn Napoleone to be weary of me -”

“Presumably without defining her role in it.”

“Quite,” Robespierre confirmed, “When I posed the suggestion, he grinned, agreeing it was brilliant because evidently she takes her coffee the same way. No idea whatsoever about her treasonous past. Still, I’m certain the reference was not wasted on his beautiful Rose by another name, from his updates I can tell she has been humouring him until she can make her excuses to run off to cry her fears and frustrations to that wretched Madame Tallien, who in turn will encourage the courtship, wanting an excuse to introduce the boy to society. Give it a few months, Louis, and we’ll have enough collation and circumstantial evidence to bring down the whole house of cards the moment Fouché moves to make good on his threat of committing an act of gross negligence - if not something more direct - to hamper my campaign.”

“And here I was beginning to fear you had lost your edge,” Saint Just said, breaking into a full grin. “That’s fucked up with the sugar though. Well done.”

Robespierre nodded, finding some pride in the gesture as it was meant. “The only thing we were able to hold Beauharnais on was his written confession that he had made his fortune selling sweets at over-inflated prices to terrorists with huge salaries and nothing else to spend it on – 50 USD for a bar of chocolate. Rose’s family supplies Nestlé, Hershey, et cetera and there is absolutely nothing in his prior financial records to suggest that such a scheme was of his own making. Ignoring, for a jury surely would, the fact that ISIS did not exist, at least, did not operate under the same financial incentives prior and fully unrelated to the union, an argument can be made that the idea was all his widow’s and that their involvement with a terrorist cell went further than usury and extortion – especially when Fouché makes his move and his allies’ present infatuation with my new client creates the appearance of collusion, grounds to bring charges of treason against the whole lot of them. We’ll purge the public sector of corrupt factors within it, leading France further towards realising her promise and potential.”

“And Buonaparte?”

“Will have played his part,” Robespierre paused, the considered, “It is unlikely that he will ever get quite as close as he wants to be – close enough for us to tie him to whatever it is Fouché plans to do to get rid of me. The lad showed up to court in trainers and a suit looking as though it belonged to a school uniform – polyester, patch torn off the breast pocket but still obviously there against the fade of the surrounding fabric,” he explained, continuing with some scorn, “Tascher wears Dior while running errands. She keeps the exclusive company of men of wealth and influence and is reportedly -presently- sharing her nights with Paul Barras. I think it a safe assumption that without my attentions – for what they are - if she noticed him at all it would be because she would be emptying an aerosol can of pepper spray on him for the crime of looking too long with an intent she would be sure to mistake for a lust of a different order.

“I don’t imagine that I am doing Napoleone any favours exactly, but having marked my check in the form of the small reminder I sent him with, she kissed his cheek in greeting, something I can reasonably infer from having spent a few hours in his general company is the closest thing to intimacy that he is like to have ever experienced. Regardless, I’m certain I can spare my errand boy the charge of collusion. There is, of course, another way in which he is incredibly useful, something I was actually hoping to employ your expertise on.”

“Enlighten me,” Saint Just said, replacing the mobile on the desk they shared and leaning forward slightly.

“He’s a footballer, well, technically at least -”

“He is not a footballer; he is a bench warmer whose name happens to almost be Napoléon Bonaparte. Mainz has a player called Saint Juste – but, like Napoleone, with a needless ‘e’ - but given that he actually plays no one is making memes about ironic nomenclature.”

“Wait, there is a Saint Just in the Rhineland?” Robespierre snorted, “That is kind of hilarious. Someone should make a meme.”

“I feel like that would be a better use of your time than keeping up this whole pretence of having a personal life when the war is so close to being won, but that is just me.”

“I’ll always love you best.”

“You _don’t_ , but that is of little relevance right now. What benefit do you see there as being in bringing an otherwise low-profile athlete in aside from his misguided affections?” Saint Just asked.

“You can’t guess it?” Robespierre challenged.

“You told me you love me any now I am hanging on your every word,” Saint Just smiled, blinking in quick succession and slowly puckering his lips.

“The press,” Robespierre answered when the short charade had ended.

His friend again straightened his spine. “Oh, that is rather cunning, that is.”

“Care to extrapolate?”

“The research Fouché is admittedly after has been the topic of conspiracy theory since Sport Bild first published a feature on that armature side,” Saint Just seemed to think aloud. “Tabloids love it, the respectable press, our usual allies, shy away from it and would do so even if we could present clear and convincing evidence to verify the claims Fouché is making, at least insofar as to make an argument that _he_ believes this story, however true or false it may ultimately prove. Sport is somewhere in the middle – half of what they print is cold economics, half is hope that goes as far as phantasy. The German … Hanger, is it?”

“He’s a British aristocrat by birth but he lives near Hannover.”

“Having discarded all titles, a friend of the revolution or at least its principles, am I mistaken?” Saint Just asked with a bit too much enthusiasm.

“I don’t suppose him to be an idealist,” Robespierre considered, “such would actually be a discredit to his pen in the niche I’m considering having him fill.”

“You have a footballer who managed to destroy corrupt local government in the scope of a league match, exactly the kind of thing he would jump at -”

“Fouché has called him to Paris to talk to him about a party he was at, rather, about the other attendants, which will pull him back to the case he made against John André,” Robespierre explained. “Napoleone’s little brother is working on setting up an interview, if I can meet with Hanger and make my case, I could well route the enemy before they can make the first move. It is not that I don’t want to implement the programme itself – I’d be a fool if I didn’t, but I don’t want a traitor to the nation itself in a position to manipulate common law to its own ends as a result.

“The problem is, if I strike too soon, I’ll risk revealing my hand, and I’ve my doubts to how much I want to risk divulging to Napoleone, who’s useful, yes, but whom I fear I shall need to disregard the moment his purpose has been fulfilled, he can’t possibly remain this naïve indefinitely.”

“So, will you strike now or wait to see how the extent of Fouché’s intelligence efforts set this all aflame?” Saint Just inquired.

Robespierre honestly did not know. “What would you instruct me to do, friend?”

“I’m surprised you have to ask,” his friend answered with a dark smile.

* * *

It was something akin to a siege, or so Clayton Tarleton mused to himself as he again walked past the glass façade of his office, annoyed to still see the young man reviewing his notes inside, likely preparing for a meeting which the mayor had every resource to see delayed –

were it only that he had the patience to withstand his personal desire to go on the offensive.

Nothing resembling discussion or dialogue would come of this item on his schedule, the young man would leave the room with the same sense of self-righteous indignation with which he had entered the building, but having checked this off the list, Clayton could make use of his initiative to disappoint the personal ambitions of yet another would-be-influencer, namely be demoting whichever young civil servant to have sat the Fridays for Future organiser in his office to only performing the most mind-numbing administrative tasks bureaucracy could create.

At least, that was something to look forward to.

He checked his watch. The boy had been waiting for thirty-five minutes. Clayton contemplated leaving the premises for the coffee-shop at the corner – as he had no desire to grant his assistant an extra cigarette break by way of his wish for a double americano after this whole controversy – he could take his laptop with him, sit at a long table and occasionally exchange a deadpan expression for the sympathy of another working professional wearing the same face while young mothers with push-carts and high-pitched laughs mistook their individual preferences for their milk-foam-espresso ratio as a cornerstone of personality. No, that would not do either. It was too close to Christmas; it would be too crowed to get any work done being as there was a limit to how many mobile devices the WiFi at Starbucks could be asked to support and too many tourists from the surrounding area trying to use Google maps to locate something that likely could not be purchased regardless of which trendy boutique near High Street promised otherwise on their Instagram page.

The thought of espresso and the near instantaneous realisation that he would have no reprieve cased a craving-born pain in Clayton’s left temple and made him long for Italy, for industry, for the life he had been comfortably living as an assistant scouting director before his younger brother Banastre went and ruined it all by putting his name forward for local office, serving to threaten the Tarleton family’s prestige in their native Merseyside had Clayton not returned to stand against him. He loved his hometown, at least, he loved it enough not to let it fall into mismanagement, and most of the time, he considered, he even loved running it –

But for the bloody idealists taking time that would surely have more value if spent on anything else.

“O’rite,” the Lord Mayor sighed to himself and he moved to enter his office and fall into what had recently become an all-too-familiar exchange, “best to get this over with.”

“Your Lordship,” the young man addressed, standing when the door swung open.

“Save it – all of it,” Clayton dismissed, looking at a large pile that had fallen to the lad’s feet when he stood in surprise, a pile Clayton feared would become a presentation if he did not put a stop to this now. “I’ll level with you,” he offered, continuing briskly, “I’m not fond of the Hewletts either, never have been, but ignoring every reason of personality, politics … personal politics, I and my offices are not the ally you are looking for in this fight.

“The fact of the matter is, the corporation that bears their family name directly employ 2,833 of my constituents, and nearly ten-thousand additional jobs in the City of Liverpool are made possible by the company being headquartered here. Fully none of these people deserve to have their livelihoods threatened or otherwise interrupted by your blasted protests. John Graves Simcoe’s offshore drilling plans have nothing to do with the surrounding area, and as you must understand, my concerns are local by the definition of the office I have the honour to hold. I’m not an enemy of progress, of the planet, of however you would choose to frame it, Mister …”

“Wellesley,” the lad gave, “Arthur Wellesley … we’ve met before -”

Clayton waived him off. “You’ll forgive my lack of reference,” he dismissed. “Any you can put all that away, I’ve heard all of your arguments before, be it from your mouth or from others repeating the same demands without anything resembling realistic expectations of how these might be met. Again, it is not that I disagree with you in principle, but I won’t put my name to policy that goes some miniscule way towards solving one problem at the expense of creating five more. I’m an elected official in a liberal city, a city that goes further than most in encouraging eco-friendly behaviour, but somehow I fear it escapes you that the only reason we can afford to keep the costs of public transport well below the national average, mandate waste separation, repair and expand in accordance to regulations with regard to urban agriculture and alternative energy, among other concerns, is because we have the tax revenue to do so – _Manchester_ ,” he said sharply, unable to resist taking a shot at his neighbour, “for example … does not.

“Now, with the advent of Brexit, I’m in talks with a number of firms looking to relocate from London, which, should their officers move here as opposed to say, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Hamburg, would enable your lot to accomplish more locally than could otherwise be achieved in your lifetime, but you stand in your own way with circular arguments and these bloody protests you participate in for reasons of trend more than anything else. Do you think Shell or BP will want to move here with you standing in the way with your signalled discontent with their competitor?” he challenged.

Wellesley merely blinked. “I … don’t think about those kinds of things … very much if I’m to be honest,” he confessed with audible unease. “I’m, um – I’m a captain in the army -”

“Bit young,” Clayton remarked, half wondering if a war had not started without his knowledge and if roles were not being created for the express purpose of being filled.

The boy paused again. Either caught up in his own lie or questioning the judgement of government, he proceeded with a measure of caution, “I just, I’ve spent the past two years on deployment and, you see, your Grace, I’ve not been out of uniform in as long and thinking against appearing in it as I’m not exactly here in any official capacity, that is, I’ve had these jeans since I was at school, though I can certainly understand why they lead to your … assumptions about my person. I honestly intended no disrespect. To you. Or your office. Or this municipality.”

Why had he not simply said as much from the start? Clayton Tarleton narrowed his eyes as he drew them over the lad who seemed determined to remain standing as long as he himself did. He was not sure if this resulted from spartan military discipline or rather in contrast the excesses of subjugation expected in the capitol, but he disliked it either way. He was a proud republican and the city he oversaw would neither bow nor bend. If this solider meant to challenge him by adapting the same posture, so be it. He would end this quickly enough.

“What does my little brother want then?” he demanded, glancing again at the papers and quietly praying to a God he only ever otherwise acknowledged as the prefix to a curse that these were not receipts on unpaid debts Banastre had accrued at some point between being offered a peerage and abandoning his teenage ward to the presses when the news of this broke. He despised his brother for his dereliction of duty for the duration of this circus, however certain he was that little Marie had done a much better job of pandering to expectations than someone whose populism was rooted in fear rather than hope. _‘I could neither ask nor have bestowed upon me a greater honour than an association with the City of Liverpool, but a title that conflicts the egalitarian values of my home and its people I should be loath to take,_ ’ he nearly echoed his almost-niece in words he himself had written when she had been informed by a former classmate -rather than her useless father-figure!- over her change in status, but the boy seemed too bewildered as things were.

Clayton took a deep breath. It was not his to make threats and this stranger had no reason or right to the truths that might be spoken as such. “I confess,” he continued with a regained calm, “I had not realised that our communication had detreated to the point that Ban is now sending his subordinates to negotiate terms, but to be honest I’m so relieved not be having another conversation about why electric automobiles are an equal strain on our planets resources and will ultimately lead to the same political realities that have defined your entire life and the full of my adulthood at least – the west’s whole tried supporting of Islamic regimes in our want of natural resources, having my natural doubts that our lust for Africa’s cobalt mines will pan out any different than our experiences with Arabia’s oil fields – that I’m, alas, prepared to give into anything you – or, I suppose Banastre, rather – asks. So,” he continued as though such asked any great and careful consideration where in truth Banastre was only ever after one thing, “You say it is not ‘official business’, which must mean a ‘financial transaction’ is to be the order of the day. Just tell me how much,” he said as he reached for his personal cheque book from his desk drawer, “I don’t think I’m much in the state to bear knowing the reasons why.”

The lad truly was not one for conversation. Again, he stammered in a response itself too long delayed for Clayton’s personal liking. He now wanted to write a number and nothing more.

“I … I mean it is true, sort of, that I’m here because of your brother,” the too-young captain seemed to revise whilst he spoke, “there is also some merit in your concerns … and my own, about the war France is waging in her former colonies as you kind of alluded to in mistaking me for a Fridays for Future organiser, but he – Sir Banastre … Lord Banastre? – did not send me, he doesn’t even know I am here nor would he have any reason to. I have my own command, your Grace.”

“Which?” Clayton asked though he had no cause to care beyond entertaining a familiarity with enough servicemen to know that talking about their assorted regiments gave them a sense of courage which would surely help in some ways towards his understanding of what the boy was after rather than what he was not.

“Seventy-third.”

“Well … fuck me then,” Clayton nodded with some understanding. He was not a military man himself, but he knew the map as it stood. “The boarder?” The boy-captain Wellesley must have pissed someone in high command right off! Clayton continued to study him, liking the lad slightly more now that he had reason to suspect he could be insubordinate when it suited him and was more than likely doing his upmost to conduct himself with the respect the mayor personally felt himself due.

“Again, I’m not here on official business, that is, I’m not _officially_ here. It is just … I need something that only you can rightly gain access to and I fear it may be urgent. I tried talking to the Queen about it and she dismissed me out of hand.”

“Expand,” Clayton motioned. Nothing good would come of this. The region the boy - for he was nothing but – had been given to garrison had a separatist faction that increased in congruence with every English soldier stationed to the town. Beyond his dedication to the morning news, Clayton had very little to do with politics outside of his direct constituency, but insofar as the local economy had ties to Scottish business interests, he was willing to offer anything that might keep the fragile union from fracture. He had very little hope for his negotiating partner, however, and motioned for him to sit before taking the chair opposite, unlocking his desktop and accessing his diary, suspecting that he would need to make a trip himself to go sit with Edmund Hewlett who likewise spoke in fragmented sentences that took even longer to come to a point -

Clayton found himself frowning at the prospect. Part of him wanted to tell the boy to do everything within his power to encourage a coup now while it could be easily contained.

“Why do you hesitate when this is a matter of urgency?” he asked instead.

“You are your brother’s solicitor, at least, in the spring of 2016 you stepped into that role. Sir Banastre gave testimony before a tribunal in The Hauge that exonerated John Graves Simcoe and Edmund Hewlett of some heinous crime, the details of which I’m not wise to nor interested in,” Wellesley paused, “Sir, my concern is such - the commission set up to determine if all of this should go to trial featured a pair of Frenchmen whom I have reason to believe are after a weapon that could prove devastating, that might already be doing so abroad.

“I … the night we met, you and I,” Wellesley deviated, “I helped a friend relieve an Albany police station of a series of affidavits written by those present when the man who confessed to holding then-Senator Arnold captive, who later -allegedly- killed Dr John André outright was shot … actually, with a weapon I’d purchased in desperation when I was led to believe that your niece was in imminent danger.”

Clayton had heard quite enough without having truly heard anything of importance. “Young man, you come into my office, confessing a crime as a lead in to a conspiracy theory, suggesting both that my brother bears some responsibility for that which you only vaguely cite, perhaps for fear of my dismissing you outright – as I am supposing others have, for why else would you be here?

“You commit a crime, seek to implement members of my family in the setup, your knees shaking as you then shift to make this sound as though this were all for our protection, and the worst of it all,” he could not help but to complain, “ is that you’ve had ample time to rehearse.

“I’ll help you, insofar as I admire your audacity enough to instruct you on how to ask _correctly_ and _precisely_ , that is, how to extract information in a conversation your negotiating partner is perhaps unwilling to give to your advantage. Your instincts are not entirely off, not … entirely, but you are in desperate need of instruction and I’d half expected to be having a similar sort of conversation with an idealist, which would have been a waste of time, as we have already discussed. But you,” he considered, “you know my dearest brother which I’ll take as evidence that you can’t possibly have faith that this world stands a chance of being saved from itself, so let us speak of things as they are: You stole a number of affidavits from a foreign authority, brought them, I presume, to my office as evidence against yourself, as a means of persuading me towards accepting the validity of ... sorry, I am a bit confused as to what exactly it is that you are claiming. Start over,” he implored, “this time restraining yourself entirely to the facts. We’ve met once, Wellesley. You don’t know me well enough to guess at my motivations.”

“I know that you tend towards the assumption that everyone you encounter threatens a stability you hold sacred.”

“Yes, as you yourself have done,” Clayton reminded him, scolding. “Third time is a charm? Tell me, once more, what it is that you want and how helping you will serve my office and this time do try to remember where you are and where I sit. Now, how does helping a confessed criminal benefit the City and People of Liverpool?”

“The transcripts of your brother’s testimony. As his acting solicitor, the authorities would have to surrender his interview in full. Knowing what was said to convince a police commissioner and a panel of sporting executives to get them to turn a blind eye to crimes alleged to have been committed by the CEO of a major Merseyside employer would help me to know what the French are now seeking in exchange for their compliance then, which, if nothing else, would allow you to pursue and even perhaps strengthen the local economy.”

“Simcoe,” Clayton paused, considering the last snippets of conversation exchanged between them, worried that he had been tricked into making an enemy from a potential ally based on conceptions of honour that served no purpose among thieves. “This commission, do you happen to know if Talleyrand sat on it?”

“Yes, yes I do, your Worship, and yes, I can affirm.”

Bloody hell! This was bad form on his part. He should have suspected that he was being deceived. “Simcoe told me something a few weeks ago in hopes of forcing me to retaliate against Talleyrand in the private sector,” Clayton muttered, “… I suppose it isn’t significant. I have time to negate on an offer made in anger you have now given me reason to doubt was itself warranted. I’ll make the call … but only on the condition that you tell me what else you _think_ it is you know.”

Wellesley nodded his consent. “Do you remember that article George Hanger wrote around the same time about the failed programme in test stages for military use?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Harry’s Razors** “was founded by two regular guys Jeff and Andy tired of paying too much for a quality shave …” which I can pretty much recite from heart because I listen to a lot of weekly news podcasts. I just looked it up though, the factory in Germany that they used to bang on about is in Eisfeld, so maybe that was taken out of the spot in relation to AfD, Pegida, and all the other right-wing BS that sprung up in East Germany at around the same time as the sanctions Aberdeen cites.
> 
>  **Trump, small hands** the best jokes have to be explained, right? This one goes back to the 2016 Reupblican primary and a quote made by candidate Marco Rubio in response to Donald Trump (quoting Rubio now) "always calling me 'little Marco.'" […] "He is taller than me, he's like 6' 2", which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5' 2"," Rubio joked. "Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands -- You can't trust them."
> 
> Do you lovely faces remember that question of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with and thinking ‘this must be the low point of debate’? Um. Tja.
> 
>  **Lucien Bonaparte is the best Bonaparte (Pt. I of ∞)** dude just … okay. Fun fact. Lucien is the reason why we have the word vendetta in the English language. When he was fourteen (14!) and his brother was on Corsica in a derogation of duty he was still getting paid to preform, Lucien was busy writing scornful essays about Corsican nationalist (when it suited him, let’s not get carried away) Pasquale Paoli and anyway, this pissed Paoli off so much that he summoned Joseph (no idea if Napoléon was there but who cares actually) and said that either he had kill his brother (Lucien, aka the important one) or the whole family would be placed under a vendetta which meant exactly what you think. So the Bonapartes all fled to the mainland and Napoléon got called back to Paris where shit just worked out for him for reasons of timing and Lucien kept on being a radical Jacobin and throwing shade with his pen (under the name **Brutus** because he imagined himself **‘stabbing dictators’**. Let’s forgive him. We were all fourteen once. Weirdly on that same theme, about ten years later he got very close to living out this phantasy when he pulled his brother (the famous one’s) sword from its sheath and before a crowd of thousands threatened to run it through him if he ever betrayed the ideas of the revolution, but that is a story for another day and we all kind of know where it ends.)
> 
>  **George Hanger** published four works within his lifetime, two of which were on sport (of which he was regarded as an authority) and two recalling episodes from his **Life, Experiences and Opinions** which I recommend anyone living in (particularly northern) Germany today to read because he holds up so well despite the centuries separating the experience.
> 
> This sounds like something taken out of a really bad sketch comedy, but **at the hight of its power, ISIS was paying salaries that saw inflation on indulgent things (such as American sweets) explode as there was nothing else to really buy.** I found a pod if you are interested in the specifics: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/04/458524627/episode-667-auditing-isis?t=1591949608556
> 
> This feels redundant as this fic only has one reader at time of publication, but on the off chance that I’ve misjudged the extent of my appeal and you are a lovely wonderful American person scratching their head over **the methodology behind Saint Just’s purge** – in Europe, prosecution is taken more seriously when the right is on trial. I know it is opposite overseas, so … yeah. Come visit? Read Hanger’s autobiography first?
> 
> Also, for of all of the sh*t in that scene that seems like creative writing but really wasn’t … the thing about Saint Just being a vegetarian was completely made up. Simcoe did not wear a hearing aid either and Hewlett didn’t exist, so I think I can be forgiven.
> 
>  **Clayton Tarleton** who I know you never heard of is one of those historical realities who deserves to have his statues toppled … but for the fact that he is not the subject of any of them. What is? Well! I’m glad you asked. Clayton (in addition to otherwise being a horrible human being who made a fortune is slave trade, let’s not overlook that) was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool who gave the city its symbol (the Liverbird … which he made up as an excuse to pun, something that amazingly got brought up in opposition to LFC wanting to trademark their crest) and made public financing a thing, which is why (directly) there is that super weird naked statue of Horatio Nelson outside of City Hall and (indirectly) why Everton is getting a new stadium.
> 
> There is probably more, but I’m done looking at a computer. Cheers.


	5. The Bluestockings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitty tries to negotiate a sustainable peace under the guise of standing up for the interests of her WhatsApp Group in a generational conflict.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Na, Leute - was geht ab? I haven’t been super update-y lately and I should probably offer words of apology as I ask for your understanding, I should _maaaaybe_ at least mention Liverpool FC winning the league for the first time in my life (so there, I have done it. Bear witness.) but these are the opening notes and I have something way better to meet mutual interests: 
> 
> There is a football club in Germany called “Friends of the Thuringia Bratwurst” who each year take it upon themselves to watch every match of the top three flights of football in order to determine who was the unluckiest team that season, using criteria like hitting the goal posts, not being awarded a free kick, etc. awarding them with recognition and 1000 “Trostwurst” (a pun on “commiseration” and “roasted sausage”) This year the winners were … Borussia Mönchengladbach, whose coach responded to the news the only way one possibly could ( ie. also with a pun) saying “Das ist mir Wurst” (eng.: “I don’t give a damn”) in accepting the free commiseration sausages.
> 
> There is nothing about this I don’t love.

Copenhagen was useless in terms of providing for her defence, but _offence_ he was certainly proving capable of extracting -

Kitty Pakenham smiled at her own wordplay, trying to make a note that she should employ the phrase later whilst reminiscing over her misadventures over a beer, or over WhatsApp, or (more than likely) both in quick succession and (almost certainly) in that order.

Her hostess, Margaret Graves, for her part, could not take her eyes from the animal, and for the past quarter hour Kitty had been hiding her genuine laughter over this posture in a veil of what she supposed read as polite and quite possibly patronising. Upon introducing her ‘guard’ dog by name to the Graves family with a rushed, erroneous apology about not being able to find a kennel that would take him, the Admiral – who appeared to meet her at the door in full ceremonial uniform (most probably at his lady wife’s bequest) – dropped his highly practiced pretence of cold formality and began recounting other animals with ‘ironic’, ‘inspired’, or ‘simply clever’ names.

In truth, Kitty had not even picked it.

She had inherited the Great Dane from the Wellesleys upon their move to London and - though her present quarters defined the same circumstance that had led to Copenhagen’s first family having left him behind in Ireland to begin with - she had been met with little resistance when she rang her parents two weekends prior asking if she might retain guardianship of the beast upon learning of the court martial with which she was to be faced. Thus far, the Dane had proven the ideal roommate, for his stature served as a deterrent to young men who might otherwise ask to spend the night and this fact saved Kitty from any motivation to keep the space tidy - which she had never quite managed, anyway. Having only a small yard, Kitty had to take him on a run twice daily which was doing wonders to combat the effects a few months of microwaved dinners and weekend pub crawls had been having on her midsection. The regular harassments of the homeless, the political, and the religiously devout no longer deterred her from visiting the city centre, for few trusted themselves to approach a woman walking such an animal and those who did, she reasoned, had proven themselves worthy of her signature or spare change.

But for all of the befit he gave her day to day, Copenhagen’s true business in having crossed the Irish Sea was the weekend, which he had helped get off to a marvellous start before she had even hit the road or attempted to ride him into battle, as it were.

Kitty had hardly been surprise when her ex – the hound’s previous owner – had sent her a text earlier that same afternoon (for he had a rather unfortunate habit of forgetting his own digressions when he was within her general vicinity) but she had been rather shocked to learn that he was, in fact, no more than a few city blocks from where she had been standing with a sign when her back pocket began to buzz.

>> _Hey, I’m in Liverpool if you still want to talk._ <<

It was far too late for any of that, and, frowning, Kitty found herself imagining all of the rest of it – sitting in a café with her ex whilst he talked about himself at length and mistook such as apology, flirtation, or an attempt at friendship.

>> _What happened to Gibraltar?_ <<

She typed back quickly; certain such phrasing would prove more effective than a simple ‘no thanks.’

>> _The Duke of Richmond shot himself._ <<

Kitty took a deep breath, wondering why nothing managed to register as normal anymore, wondering if she had done more to deserve any of this than everyone else who happened to be alive in these trying times, wondering why no one with whom she associated was capable of extending her the courtesy to be unaccommodating to their immediate troubles.

>> _Oh. That. Well I’m going to be out of town_

_until Monday, but at a memorial of sorts right_

_now if you're down for some mindless_

_value-signalling._ <<

>> _Fridays for Future?_ <<

He guessed correctly.

>> _I can’t. Had a misunderstanding with the mayor_

_over the movement and my involvement in it and_

_don’t want to risk subjecting myself to another rant_

_about the public cost of sustainable energy if I can_

_do anything to avoid it_.<<

>> _What were you doing with the mayor? <<_

Kitty asked, hating that she found herself somewhat intrigued.

>> _Don’t you drive a diesel Range Rover form the 90s?_ <<

Atty answered. Oh, Kitty thought. So that is how he wanted to play it.

>> _Walked here, didn’t I?_ <<

>> _Well, walk somewhere we can meet up. Café? Pub?_ <<

 _‘Café? Pub?’_ Kitty repeated to herself out loud, rolling her eyes as she returned to the expectations which she had of such a reunion. Then again, she considered, it might be in her interests to test her negotiation tactic on a neutral party before attempting to employ it on the Graves’ - or rather, their niece. She could show him the document forwarded to her by one of their many mutual friends and sustain the inevitable with a smile if it proved to be the distraction from politics the public needed in moments in which the system failed and fractured. With any luck, Arthur Wellesley would so fixate on an unrealistic and untestable hypothetical that he would not find time to bore her with the ways in which his self-importance actually manifested. _Surely_ , Kitty rolled her eyes, if he had been scouted by a wealthy club as a child and had the pure luck to make it all the way through the academy without any disqualifying injuries, only to go on to stir up civil unrest in his home town after being unable to get into the starting eleven while out on loan, coming out of a lawsuit the club paying his wages had levelled against him with pollical clout, a coaching gig and a marginal pay increase – _surely_ Atty (and every other lad in Britain was a passing affiliation for an underperforming side) would be doing a far better job of all of it if only it had happened to them.

>> _Park? Copenhagen is with_.<<

Most of the conversation that had since come to pass between them conformed to precisely these expectations, which was a relief, as was the fact that Atty had shown up late with Earl Grey that had grown cold – having remembered that she did not drink ‘real’ milk, stopping at Tesco with his to-go cups and the handful of cream and sugar packets he had grabbed on his way out of some over priced tea shop to pick up a pint of soy-substitute. She had, in part, had only agreed to meet because she knew the reunion would be brief and he had managed through his own better intention to make it more so, which was also quite welcome. He spent half the time they were able to share focusing his attentions on Copenhagen, whom he loved far better than he ever had her – but at least this was honest when nothing else entirely could be.

Atty looked awful - itself quite satisfying - but he looked ‘awful’ in the very particular sense of being nervous and needing sleep, which was to say that his present appearance had not make her regret the parts of their shared past which his general personality had not already lain to waste.

She on the other hand had looked sublime and had smiled when he clumsily said as much after stagnating for a half hour on Napoleone Buonaparte and a line up he had apparently used at Toulouse – names that, had she heard them, did not speak to her as they did not echo with the same gravitas – saying how he would have set up differently. He pretended not to hear her when she wondered if he would have likewise delivered a 1-3 victory, instead asking her where she had found the text and if she could read it (‘ _not,’_ he clarified quickly, somewhat clamoured, _‘a critique on your French but rather of that of ‘the Emperor’ – what a fucking moniker to have to own! I bet ‘The Special One’ is kicking himself that he did not come on the same.’ – ‘I bet Paul Pogba is having a right old time rubbing it in,’_ she added, only to find herself back at _– ‘Were you always this lovely?’_ )

Kitty had then mentioned as though it were completely out of hand (and had not, in fact, been occupying her every waking moment over the past several weeks) that she was spending the weekend at ‘the Fort’ – a phrase she quickly found that meant something entirely different in their new, respective realities. Upon having to backtrack to explain that her blow-out owed itself to the fact that the editor of British Vogue had asked to meet her at her country estate after their paths had briefly crossed at the ball.

 _The ball._ To her shame, she rather swallowed the word than spoken it.

Atty, naturally, sensed something of her nerves and inquired further – naturally in the chauvinistic way all young men (or so she was learning post-break-up) were given to interpreting as chivalry: ‘ _Should I come with you?_ ’ squinting ever so slightly all the while in a way he likely imagined was evocative on genuine interest and concern but which really said ‘ _I’m not confident that I know enough about cars to be of any actual assistance with the mechanic, but I’d happily spend twenty or so minutes pretending otherwise because I do rather fancy a shag._ ’ Kitty, however, had been enough in her own mind at the moment to be of a mind to let it go.

‘ _No need, I’ll have Copenhagen with me. I’ll be fine,’_ she brushed him off as though she actually believed in her strategy and her ability to see it to fruition.

 _‘You are bringing a dog to your meeting with Cruella De Vil?_ ’ he smiled coyly.

Oh. She remembered. That is what she had once liked about him.

Admittedly, on its face this plan seemed lacking for sense, but Kitty had done the Season and knew how to truly undermine old ladies with fairly new money with visuals whose threat was more mind-born than present.

Copenhagen, though slightly small for his breed, was bigger than both the petite Margaret Graves and her niece Effie Gwillim, but it was not his size that had motivated Kitty to bring him across the Irish Sea.

It was his spittle.

It was the fact that his mouth was always open and always salivating, which felt far more damning to Margaret Graves’ visible nerves than his fangs might ever prove if he ever had the mind to bear them.

In the drawing room of the stately residence filled with its tiny, delicate details, Kitty reached out to give her dog a pat. Copenhagen accepted the attention before laying himself down on Margaret’s doubly priceless carpet, still drooling as he began to doze off from all the day’s activity – also a factor in Kitty’s calculations. She did not tidy her flat exactly, but she did manage to replace her fitted bedsheet every morning, waking up to find it wet. Margaret would likely lie awake with the memory and in the morning find cause to completely redecorate.

The Dame swallowed and then quickly cleared her throat, likely choking on a comment of _‘that thing belongs out in the stables’_ or something else akin before she spoke in sugared tones, “Catherine, you have no need of or cause for your … apprehensions. We’re not angry, of course, not with you – we simply wanted to meet with you out of concern that you stepped into a situation you may have profoundly misunderstood.”

She was nervous, Kitty noted.

That made at least two of them.

Kitty had been relieved to find Effie Gwillim was in fact at her aunt’s side as she had rather expected, not out of particular affection for the woman but because the plan she meant to set in motion relied entirely on Gwillim’s consent and cooperation – Kitty had, after all, not been able to come up with anything she could bargain to Margaret directly.

The Admiral was to be predicted, Mrs Graves’ mirror of her tactic of bringing in the heavy calvary in the form of an exceptionally large obstacle, to one’s vision if nothing else. Samuel Graves was dressed in a uniform that fit as though he had not had an occasion to wear it since retirement, Kitty could not help but to note. When he laughed, the expansion of his chest created such a strain on the poor buttons holding his jacket together that Kitty feared these would likely fly off like grapeshot sooner or later, wounding, perhaps, the man’s pride and his wife’s sense of propriety. 

His godson, John Graves Simcoe, however, came as something of a surprise and in the silence in which he sat remained fully an enigma. Kitty had not prepared or prepared herself for his presence, but perhaps this too, worked to her immediate benefit; she had not sat quite this straight since finishing school and in doing so, however unconsciously, she had managed to rob Margaret of that which she had heard was one of her favourite complaints to make about company.

“Of, course, of course,” Kitty agreed with a calm she had practiced. “The English don’t get angry, do they? They simply get indignant. It is curious … I was half-ways wondering what the fourth estate did in such a predicament, as certainly writing a strongly worded letter to the editor would be something of a redundancy … but now I see. You have tea. Makes sense, I suppose. But then … you are not really a branch of power onto yourselves anymore … at least, not in this country, are you?” she paused and pouted. “If you don’t mind me saying, you are more of an auxiliary of Westminster. I mean … I don’t have the feeling that I’m particularly well-informed about what is going on in politics, or with Brexit, or with anything, really, but I also don’t feel that this is any fault of my own because it is not like I’m not trying to follow the news. You are just, not really doing a job of reporting it. Sorry, that may have come across as a bit more critical than I intended. Now, what was it exactly that you wanted to set me straight on?”

“You are a clever one, aren’t you?” Margret seemed to accuse.

“Not particularly if I’m to be perfectly honest. I just seem to have an unparalleled talent for finding myself in places I’d rather not be,” Kitty countered, “But, _since I am here_ -”

“The last time we met you seem to have come away with the impression that I was responsible for the death of Edward Hewlett,” Simcoe spoke before she could say her peace. So, Kitty observed, she had not imagined it. His voice really was higher than her own, chilling though it seemed to chime.

Kitty swallowed. This was not the conversation she was intent of having. This was not the conversation she had rehearsed so often in her own mind that it now seemed that everyone had well ought to be off book.

She had intended to play so much to Gwillim’s clear ambition as to herself be forgotten in the process.

Kitty knew that she could not win this fight if forced to have it, but if she could convince her hosts that their house instead already had so to speak, she, and everyone she truly cared about, might yet stand a chance of escaping unscathed.

“And now that he is _dead_ -dead my opinion hasn’t changed,” Kitty told this intruder as bluntly as she dared. “And … through absolutely no actions of my own the wider public now shares it. Everyone, at least everyone in Liverpool, thinks that the Duke of Richmond killed himself because of your plans to expand offshore drilling. And honestly?” she squinted, trying to make Simcoe or at least the women she suspected held some great influence over him see sense, “That seems to me like a narrative that you should be moving to promote. Like … I’m not reading economics at uni or anything like that, but I do read The Economist from time to time for what little it is worth, and I just think … you should maybe take the blame on this one?” she suggested, raising her voice as though this was a question as it was best to do with men that they might later reflect on such ideas as though they had been their own.

Kitty wanted to be done with the death – murder, suicide or otherwise. In this, she seemed alone.

The papers spoke of little but.

Without herself speaking, Effie Gwillim gestured for Kitty to continue. She was prettier than she seemed in photographs and more elegant than nearly anyone Kitty had ever witnessed, and she had herself been raised in such standard, or, as she now saw, something that tried to approach it. Gwillim had done little more than move her hand lightly but Kitty felt as though she had been slapped, every bigoted comment she had ever heard Englishmen make against the Irish gaining weight as she inevitably began comparing herself against the women before her. Marie, she thought, had not been mistaken in her calculation that Gwillim was for more regal than any of the Crown’s other pretenders, and Kitty began considering that the little editor in her own right was likely every bit as cunning and unscrupulous as she had been promised as well. Kitty took a deep breath and tried to hold it in along with the hint of stress-eaten opulence a handful of dog walks and Spanx a size too-small had not altogether eliminated from her waist, trying to tell herself that most women probably felt fat seated across from the Mail’s editor same as they all inevitably did opening an issue of the Margaret’s fashion periodical, trying to tell herself that she, at least, had made the decision to be better than this.

Which said nothing as to how all of the unavoidable comparison was felt, however she otherwise aspired to think.

“The environmentalists will have a martyr,” Kitty continued with slightly more force, just enough to seem competent in matters such as hearsay without going so far as to remind anyone of what exactly she heard and what was said up in Scotland six weeks past, “the attention around the Hewlett family will thusly shift from one realm of populist politics to another, and the Liverpool City Council will have effectively dealt itself a blow by working to promote this narrative. And I mean,” she paused, “it is not the truth, but it is a lie we can all live with, and isn’t that kind of your currency? Like um … whatever happened in Edinburgh two years ago, apparently everyone who was in power was in the room at the time and you just said whatever they did and it kind of worked out for you until this happened, so why not just sum up you last conversation with the Duke, get ahead of the controversy and pick up a few unscrupulous investors who will be happy to see oil and energy prices kept relatively level post-Brexit and their seats in Parliament secured on a promise kept?”

“If only your uncles shared your apparent courage, young miss,” the Admiral said.

He was right, of course but Kitty felt that there was nothing left for her in the immediate but to stay her own.

“I’m not brave, Sir,” she contradicted calmly. “But then as your goodwife herself said, I’m not here under any threat and I would rather appreciate if the ones you now seek to make did not ring so, well … empty.

“Understand, it is not that I think myself particularly shrewd or anything of the sort, but there is really nothing you can do to hurt me, if you intended to, then you picked a really poor field on which to make your stand. Everyone at my school knows I’m spending the weekend at your residence. My parents know. My friends know. Weirdly my ex knows, too. So … should any harm come upon my person, you would be the first to be put under suspicion, which seems to be something you all wish to avoid every aspect of, again, no offence meant.

“Whatever influence you exercise in the high admiralty, Sir,” she addressed Graves directly, “no one reigns alone and I can’t imagine that you would be able to block any promotion that serves the same politics that I have to at least imagine ensured most of yours: it is simply good for Anglo-Irish relations right now for Irishmen to serve in command positions, something you yourself surely benefited from back during The Troubles, something that certainly appears to be fast-tracking at least a couple of careers now that Brexit is causing the treat of conflict on all of England’s boarders,” Kitty alluded without offering an example she knew she might come to regret. “But … oh listen to me!” she shifted, realising that her speech was winning her little support. “What do I know of how the world works? I’m just a girl in an admittedly bad position … but um, I still have the higher ground, as like … military people would say,” Kitty offered in a half-hearted attempt to speak to the Admiral in something his own language. She doubted addressing him in Gaelic would render quite the desired effect.

“The higher ground,” Simcoe repeated, his pitch slightly raised in a manner that could not be interpreted as mere inquiry, warning, “You should be as careful as you caution when it comes to making ‘empty’ threats.”

“Well, if one were to take that phrase for its _moral_ implications, I, at least, haven’t done anything repugnant … yet. But,” Kitty swallowed, watching the ginger’s fingers tap against his knee, imagining them closing around her throat – a phantasy John Graves could be assumed to share. “We’re here to negotiate. And it is like … I don’t think you people have any actual impulse control, but I think you fake it well enough, and thusly I think we can make a deal.”

“What is your price?” Margaret raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

Kitty did her best to seem as though she were only now considering this. “What does and edition of the Mail on Sunday cost these days?” she asked, “Two quid? I want the cover.”

“You what?” Gwillim spoke for the first time since taking her seat at her aunt’s side. She clearly had not been expecting to play a role in this parley.

Kitty Pakenham had been rather diligent lately when it came to reading the papers and had come to a very certain conclusion. The best way to get someone invested in a lie was to frame it around, if not a truth per se, then a self-confirming bias.

She had tried the story she had prepared on Atty earlier in the afternoon and it had (rather predictably) worked wonders to his imagination, but then it was bound to and would have regardless of actual content - he was and ever had been consumed by the fear that his friends liked her a tick better than they did him; alone dropping the name of someone with whom he shared an association inspired his confidence in whatever else was spoken.

She had not come to know Gwillim enough in the past half-hour or so to guess at what motivated her beyond than that which she had already speculated in the weeks prior, but she could reasonably assume that unlike with Arthur Wellesley the specifics of her peace treaty would not ring with the same emotional attachment.

Stick to the facts, Kitty thought.

Stick to phrases, at least, that fit that all-but-forgotten mould: Who. What. Where. Why. How.

Whatever else she might have been or might yet want to become, Effie Gwillim was a journalist or some standing, which was to say she owned a widely distributed tabloid through inheritance. Stick to the facts. Gwillim could make what she would of the rest of it.

“I should have said up front, I’m not here exclusively on my own interests,” Kitty began somewhat nervously, rushing into an explanation that quite confessed her every apprehension, “I have … like a few years back when we were still dating, Atty added me into a WhatsApp Group with some of the kids he went to school with and a few Americans I think you actually know, Mr Simcoe, and it is like this: my mate Thea is like mad good at footy, like her school team is in regionals right now and they almost took state last season, so, I mean – like, she obviously already has offers from various universities, but school is so fucking expensive in the United States and she wants a full scholarship -”

“Aaron Burr is one of the richest men in New York,” Simcoe again interrupted. Kitty bit her lip. All Thea really wanted was to stop her friend Cicero from working towards his own detriment. But Marie had believed this story when she was asked to play a role within it, and Kitty was happy to continue the ruse for her friend across the pond if it helped save her from the Graves’ ire at her unknowing intrusion and went some way to saving everyone else in the chat from their own worst inclinations in terms of world affairs.

Thea had written her during the week in a private message after Farid left the group when discussion again turned to John André and conspiracy theories around his research. >> _Hey, I know we don’t know each other all that well and I imagine this is the last thing you want to hear, but there is a really strong chance that your ex has a bunch of papers in his possession that outline the way a military trail study was organised and I’ve been doing my best to end the interest in them over here giving what it would do to our court system, but you know how lads are when they get stuck on something, I’m sure. I saw on your Insta that you are visiting the Fort in the next few days, and as such Marie is probably going to message you privately if she has not already done so. I’m not asking you to reach out to Atty or anything, but if you don’t mind, try to go along with what she tries to sell you on and make the same pitch to Gwillim._ <<

Kitty had questions. Obviously. Hopefully, the people with whom she now parleyed would not share the most of them, as those who assumed they knew everything rarely found the need to ask.

“Sure,” Kitty said slowly, “but Thea doesn’t want to be a lawyer and taking any financial help from her father would entitle him to dictate her course load. So … anyway,” she returned, trying to bring a lightness to her voice and to the discussion as she continued, “Marie who is in this group as well already has acceptance into Oxford even though she won’t sit her A Levels until the spring, so Thea asked her if she had any tips for getting scouts to look at her, and like, okay,” Kitty made a show a rolling her eyes, “in Marie’s case there are other factors at play than just fencing, but as you never miss an opportunity to point out to everyone, the girl quite literally has sport in her blood, and she basically grew up a Tarleton, so she knows her way around a contract. But. But – she has never dealt with American university recruitment, so … she did some research. And now she thinks that she can get Thea better representation than her prior associations, like her uncle’s literal associates, could provide. And I am here to make that call happen. In other words,” she stopped, “you have already won, but Marie can’t formally extend you an olive branch herself after all you have done to her family, and this is kind of time sensitive for a lot of reasons -”

Gwillim looked intrigued. Simcoe spoke. “Thea is a sophomore; she has two years -”

This was not working. At least, not on everyone. Partially and admittedly because little of it was entirely true. Theodosia Burr had come up with the story of university admissions to appeal to Marie’s natural sympathies separate of anything of which either of them knew the Graves family to be involved in. Thea had overheard her father talking on the phone with a colleague about discrepancies in a corruption case his office had given over to The Hauge, suggesting a wider conspiracy within the prosecutorial body. The law, Thea knew from personal experience, was never an equal measure of anything beyond the day’s politics, and she had not thought much of it until names she only vaguely knew were evoked again in the conversations she had been having with her friends at school of late.

The problem was, right or wrong, the judgement had to remain unchallenged. Needing to establish contact with someone who might be in a position to ensure such an outcome, Thea had asked for assistance, however indirectly. Kitty herself agreed that with such an audience, beginning with the part about the acquittal would be met with a null sum outcome – Marie Robinson was a pragmatist who did not especially care who was in power or on what grounds insofar as business was not interrupted. She had cooled under constant siege and would not tolerate another attack on her adoptive house lightly; that said, she could be relatively easily enticed into executing a coup from within.

As Kitty and Thea saw it, Marie was increasingly given to think of herself as being isolated and as such, seemed to leap towards anything she could identify, here in Thea’s story – generational conflicts of expectations. She could believe that Thea did not want to be a lawyer because she herself did not want to wear a hollow crown, resenting her own father figure enough that she could be reasonably relied on to move against him if it met with her interests in a way that did not force her to openly admit them too soon -

But then, Simcoe knew Thea better than Marie did. To that end, he had known Marie since she had been in pampers. He knew something was up.

But Kitty only needed to convince Gwillim for the plan to take effect, and she, at least, seemed willing to commit to the narrative she was being presented, at least enough to want it to be brought to conclusion.

“And Marie’s mum?” Kitty challenged. “She has what, like two weeks? Three maybe? Look,” she turned her full attention back to Gwillim, “Marie knows you are on her side – she told me as much, I can show you the text if you want - but she can’t openly acknowledge as much without losing her foothold within her adoptive family. The Tarletons were - to the last - happy to use her or to let her be used to secure power and influence which she now means to take, and I mean – honestly, I don’t expect it will even be that hard much as you have done to weaken them over the past months – but it will never be secure if it is simply given, if you catch my meaning. The Liverpudlians want a crown, I mean of course they do – everyone knows as much, but their republican politics won’t allow them to admit it. Banastre means to abdicate his title to Marie as soon as it is bestowed, as soon as the adoption has been finalised, rather. None of this is sudden. We have all kind of known from the moment that Lady Anna started hinting at her support of Scottish Independence that it was inevitable that Her Majesty would find grounds on which to at least cause a challenge to Lord Edmund’s claims to Richmond, and the Crown benefits the most from the scenario that sets Eleanor up for contention out of all of his siblings. Edna may not have the support of the Hamiltons at the moment, but that would change, surely, if she became the Kingdom’s largest landholder, something her politics would never allow to happen. Eugene is married to a Catholic himself, so his ascension would come with the same problems as that of his brother, nominally, at least. Lady Anna, of course, can’t be seated unless she converts, which would be slap in the face to Spain she simply can’t spare, especially not now when she has a rival you have done your upmost to make the British people pity, which is almost the same as love.”

Gwillim nodded slowly. “Banastre will have to give up a title that, more than anything else, his paper marriage to a former princess entitles him to hold for his own family could not politically survive the manifestation of the critiques that have been levelled against their rule, but giving it to Marie would keep it within their control all the same,” she surmised. “I fail to understand what my role in this should be. Even if Marie - out of spite for her present situation - should refuse, it is not as though she were the only possibly contender-"

For a moment, Kitty considered that she might not have found the ally she had suspected, that Effie Gwillim was not truly a mild-mannered centrist like herself, but in the same thought it occurred to her that, also like herself, the editor was used to getting her way. Perhaps they were both feeling one another out. If only this could be done with some measure of privacy! But Margaret had extended the ‘invitation’, it was Admiral Graves’ home, and Simcoe, it seemed could not avoid placing himself in the proximity of illicit dealings. Kitty took a deep break. The room felt as though there were too little oxygen within it to sustain the five of them.

“His other daughter Banina can’t be considered here, she has a Scottish mother which could attract the wrong support for her claim, namely the element Westminster and Buckingham Palace - and you, and I,” she stressed, “are trying to negate in the first place.” At this, Gwillim offered a hit of a smile, at once encouraging and off putting.

“Like … I read the papers which are inherently overblown an apocalyptic so I have no way of accurately judging just how bad the separatist situation in Scotland actually is, but I don’t think it serves your interest either, handling the Hewlett family’s corporate interests as you do, for talk to take action. On the other hand, if Banastre was instead to be crowned on count of his wife-in-name, and if he were allowed to at least control it thereafter, that would be like swapping plague for cholera, would it not? As a leader of industry,” she turned to address Simcoe, “you are in a difficult predicament. You can no better alienate your financial backers than you can the landholders of your most significant epicentre, but … nothing stopping you from writing a strongly worded letter to the editor, now is there?

“And I dare to say … that is exactly what you did, by way of getting others to do so for you – delegating tasks, I think that is something to do with leadership, is it not? Ms Gwillim - herself more than familiar with the personalities involved and their political idiosyncrasies- jumped at the opportunity to put Clayton Tarleton under siege after his sister-in-law was killed in that worker’s uprising in Turin, he _had_ to take the position of the common people to avoid further assault closer to their strong hold. There was really no choice. This meant a campaign of appeasement at the expense of his relationship with his brothers – but his forces are presently stretched far too thin to be of any serious threat to your combined further ambition.

“Claiming Banastre sexually abuses his young ward was I mean,” Kitty frowned, “let’s make nothing of it, it was fucking awful, but he was sent off on a diplomatic assignment shortly after – probably due to another of Clayton’s attempts to avoid scandal and controversy - and now we are in a situation where Marie is about to lose her mother and however unwarranted your claims actually were, there is no way any court is going to allow her to remain in the care of her almost-step-dad.

“She _has_ no other family, so you, Ms Gwillim, as her godmother, will likely be asked to assume responsibility for her care. That is at least part of the reason why you have been making all of these faux-religious overtones of late, is it not?” Kitty gave a knowing smile as sardonic as the one she had been offered. Gwillim looked paler in noting it.

“Eleanor Hewlett is out of the question however strained her own ties to Tarleton are,” Kitty continued, “and I don’t think someone like George Hanger would even be part of the conversation, so you are about to find yourself a regent of sorts for a girl who has a claim to Richmond however shaky, who will inherit some portion of the shares you currently possess in the company your own god-brother runs, who herself is furious over the ways in which she has been used by the Hewletts to her own humiliation of late, at how quick her would-have-been-but-for-a-pen-stroke family was to sell her to their ideological rivals for their own political ends, but ... who still loves them enough to be trying to stop them from going under with this vacuum of competence you have played your part to create. Namely, she’s been trying to rescue William’s agency from speculation, and I mean … she’s been pretty effective so far,” Kitty shrugged. As far as she knew, all of this was true. Marie was too busy making shady business dealings happen nearly absent of her hand to quite bother with deceptions where her friends were concerned, but then, she was not particularly political. Kitty wished she had anything of either the girl’s drive or alternativly of her complete indifference.

Margaret again raised an eyebrow and Simcoe looked as though he meant to again protest, but Kitty continued as though she had taken no note of his parting lips.

“With the whole politics thing, you are the only people who have nominally been on her side so far, and like one way or another she was going to be put into this situation, and I don’t think there is any question of who would be the best governess when it comes to teaching one how to be a proper lady than Ms Gwillim, but honestly?” she squinted, leaning in as though she meant to reveal a secret rather than what amounted to a mundane fact. “Between you and I, when all this is over, when Marie is old enough to dictate her own fate in a voice people will actually try to hear, she will probably just let you keep on with what I’m guessing you’ll be doing to that point of ‘acting in her name’ to consolidate all of the power to stake for yourselves. Like ... she has no actual politics, I don’t think the girl could give a toss who wins the war everyone supposes is about to break out in the north as long as the victory is decisive. Tell her blood is being spilt,” Kitty paused, considering, “so like ... just keep running The Daily Mail, I guess, and then give her an allowance to keep her uncle’s agency running and I’m sure she will be happy to let you all of the power you’ve set yourselves up to hold.”

“Oh, I trust in all you have said, Catherine, _clearly_ , or I would not have gambled my control of the board,” Gwillim said in sugared tones as though she regularly had such candid discussions over such crucial matters to the peril of any who would dare engage her, hardening slightly as she continued, “what I do not understand is your personal investment in this scenario. You level a number of heavy accusations at myself and members of my family, only to turn around and attempt to make a deal that from my perspective has already been done. I will look over that which you wish to see printed and if I have cause to believe doing so will help Marie feel more at home in the one I would happily open to her should she in fact wish it, I would naturally be open to it, it is only – I cannot figure out why you have taken up the role of facilitating this negotiation.

“You claim to be her friend, or to be Thea's, or to simply find yourself sharing contacts, I am not really sure, but your actions and most of your words seem to suggest otherwise. What exactly are your interests and why trust me to act on their behalf?”

It was a good question.

“Because ... you got away with it before?” Kitty tried. “Because you strike me as being more competent than the politics you print? So, look um … I haven’t changed my mind about you people, but I haven’t shared it with anyone either. I know you are all murderers, but I think helping you achieve your ends would be the most effective way of making sure more blood isn’t so pointlessly spilt. I have a friend who was recently assigned to the 73rd, and I … look,” she choked, “you can trust me - at least, you can truth that I want Scotland and England to remain at peace, if for no other reason than the fact that someone I’ve known for like half my life would be caught directly in the crossfire, same as I truth that such is within your corporate interests, if nothing more, if all my assumptions on your politics and personal loyalties are in fact misplaced. Accept the deal that is being offered. Please. It is in everyone’s best interest to just let this play out with words rather than weapons.”

“What exactly do you girls want to see printed?” Graves asked.

“A short historical romance accompanied by the kind of scathing commentary which I am certain Ms Gwillim can find it within herself to provide,” Kitty answered, her voice growing small as she began to consider how ridiculous the proposition sounded on its face.

“I’m lost,” Gwillim admitted. “I thought you were trying to help Marie help Thea get into a decent school – however otherwise laden with backroom politics your attempts at negotiating your way onto my cover have been.”

“I’m not,” Simcoe scoffed. “It is a story George Hanger passed up on about one of the targets a French mogul is looking to put under contract, but one he sent me and, I presume, Ban Tarleton and likely a few of the other lads for our own amusements all the same, and no way. Absolutely out of the question. Catherine -” he scolded, his high-pitched voice failing to invite humour as it rose yet another octane in anger.

“It is Kitty,” she said, half-terrified, half conscious of every appeal to the public she had ever skipped over on television only to share on social media when as hashtag had been attached – the police told grieving relatives of the missing or murdered to keep repeating their familiar name. It was worth a shot if nothing else.

“Kitty,” Simcoe softened slightly, “I get that you want to help your friends, but this isn’t helping anyone. I don’t know if you are conscious of what happened the night of the ball, but – this is,” he shook his head, “whatever her motives - and I am happy to accept Marie was only trying to help a friend – but she put herself in a position to be exploited and I cannot and will not abide -”

Kitty blinked as that which her suddenly self-righteous opponent was trying not to say began to skin in. “Ohmigod. Are you actually being serious right now? Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but how the fuck are you the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? First up – why does every sexual encounter suddenly have to conform to the ‘Me Too’ narrative? Marie did not sleep with Talleyrand to get him to look at a few matches and negotiate Thea’s way into the Ivy League, she didn’t _sleep_ with him at all, for that matter. She _fucked_ him. She knew or at least assumed her uncles would find out and would then attempt to make transfers in a fashion that would severely threaten the Frenchman’s assets and she also knew that they would be too preoccupied with other pressing concerns that she could not find a way to stop any deal she was not already planning on seeing though from being signed, and um … that just kind of worked out for her, I guess, because no one is talking about Joachim Murat going to Arsenal for some stupid sum of money of the kind that I’m told is never on offer from that club anyway unless the player is injury-prone and edging on thirty … but whatever. The transfer market is about to open, and no one can quite say what is real; as far as I can make out, no one ever really can, even if they are involved in negotiations.

“But this all _looked_ real for a minute and in the meantime, Talleyrand apparently flinched, lost a couple of clients and now he is after some ex-centre-mid who could not cut it in the first team and who is now working on his coaching badges because he has a good lawyer or something – from what I gather from the press around it anyway. Actually,” she adjusted, half-hoping that Gwillim would be able to expand, “I’m not really sure if this guy is a person of interest because he had some really famous whatever the French version of a Crown Prosecutor is arguing against PSG on his behalf of if he got a coach gig because of it or both – but I guess it is not really important. Talleyrand assuming he can recoup on his losses if he gets the guy under his management, however, is. This would prove an in if you could swing it – it is exactly the kind of PR crisis Talleyrand enjoys exploiting. And Marie already told him that she could all but deliver Buonaparte if he would get Burr into Yale.” And Kitty had to put Thea into contact with Talleyrand before the ideologues among whom her friend in New York lived were able to pursue a course of action against that which the man’s testimony was alleged to have ensured to presumably disastrous ends for both sides of the Atlantic if the truth ever got out. Kitty knew from recent experience that the dead should never be unburied. But it would not serve anyone’s interest saying as much.

“I do not really follow sport,” Gwillim said, glancing to Simcoe for what Kitty could identify was a want for assistance. She would not allow it.

“I don’t either, really, but there was a picture of me dancing with Steven Gerrard in FourFourTwo last month, so now everything talks to me about it under the assumption that I’m cooler than I actually am, and … I’m still kind of new in England so I don’t want to do anything to shake that concept up just yet,” Kitty shrugged. “But this isn’t really about sport itself, just one of the many political machinations in the modern game and not really even an all too intriguing one at that – I mean, I’ve read the novella myself obviously and … sorry, let me back up.

“Where you come into this: beginning of this week, after Hanger concluded whatever interview he was conducting in Paris, he sent a few people a link to something he decided against using in it, Sir Banastre sent it to his ward for translation, Marie then rang Talleyrand and asked him first if he was having fun yet, second if she had been able to change his mind about representing her mate – meaning Thea – he hadn’t, which she had frankly expected, so she asked him if he had yet been able to pry Napoleone away from his agent, which he also hadn’t, so then she comes at him like _‘I could make your thing a lot easier for you if you consent to helping me with mine’_ – told him about the novella and told him that she could get it in the DM, then called me and explained all and all of her motivations for making peace, knowing that I was coming down for the weekend cause I posted about it on Insta, partly for my own protection. But if you are in it, you are in it I guess.

"And so … now I am here. And with Marie it is like … with everything else that has happened to and around her recently, football is kind of the only reliable constant in her life, so it makes sense that she is clinging to it and trying to stake her claims,” Kitty reasoned aloud as Gwillim looked expectantly on, not really certain what else she was meant to say, “and, well, if helping her in some small way to do this just so happens to coincide with my desire to stop the union from tearing itself apart whilst a mate of mine happens to be in the dead zone and happens to help another mate break away from parental expectations and go on to bigger and better things on her own terms, I’m of course happy to help, even if it means brokering a deal with you, the lesser evil to use a turn of phrase.”

Simcoe still found ground on which to protest. “This isn’t as simple and straight-forward as you imagine, Kitty – Marie is a victim here and I won’t consent to capitalising on that. I can’t believe for a moment that Thea would have any desire of benefiting from such behaviour either if she knew the details given all that she has been through.” That was bullshit. Kitty found herself looking to Margaret in hopes that the women would call her godson out on such sentiment for feminism clearly had not gone far enough, but the Dame’s own gaze remained fixed on her dog and her acidic comments followed the party line completely.

“This Talleyrand is such a pig, that you girls could even suggest putting someone you refer to as a ‘friend’ at his graces.”

“Uh … no?” Kitty said flatly. “John? Mags? Check to make sure your hearing aids are all turned on, maybe? Sorry but Marie didn’t sleep with an old, rich, hugely influential white guy to get ahead in the business she is trying to get into, she got ahead on her own initiative and intuition and slept with him kind of as an afterthought. She _initiated_ it. I was _there_. There was no like quid-pro-quo prior to the act and where it presents here it is more of an after-fuck fag than its own act of depravation. Marie is kind of a feminist hero, and Talleyrand isn’t a pig, he is a prop. But then aren’t they all in the end? Men I mean?” she frowned. “And to suggest that Thea isn’t capable of separating her friend’s sex life from her own worst experience – or herself from that afternoon is frankly insulting and I know for a fact she wishes everyone would just stop. Like I mean, maybe she hasn’t moved on, maybe she’ll never quite be able to, but she has moved forward in her own way, and entirely on her own terms. And really? Good on her. Thea could have been a martyr, the subject of protest signs and news segments, but she wants and has always wanted to distance herself from what was done to her, and in the foreseeable future that means not reading law, not becoming a prosecutor, not having to have any interactions with the NYPD whatsoever save the occasional citation for ‘driving-while-black.’”

“You are terribly confused as to exactly what feminism is, child. It is almost an insult to hear the word spoken in such context.”

“Because women can’t enjoy sex now that a few have been open about it happening in the workplace?” Kitty spat. “Is that what sisterhood is? Because if one were to read your publication, Ms Graves, one would be more tempted to think it remained a tired narrative of women hating women, of starvation to fit into clothes still largely designed by men for the benefit of their gaze which we are still taught to covet. That is what Vogue is, right? Just no one is calling you out on it because you have people like Emma Watson and Duchess Meghan gracing your covers.”

“Do you read the articles?” Margaret challenged.

Had she misjudged their politics entirely? Why were they pressing this sex thing so? Were they that conservative? Progressive? Kitty had a difficult time following the positions taken in politicising morality when religous insitutions were not consulted or evoked. Either way, she could not find the problem however she tried to look at it and as such suspected that her hosts did not take issue with anything that happened in private, but rather with her person and her presence. In a zugzwang, the best of all of the worst options seemed to her to make something of a show of resolve.

“Sure, same as every bloke who ever picked up an issue of Playboy claims,” Kitty rolled her eyes. “Does anyone?” she questioned, “Does it even matter? Maybe now that you are meeting the ends to your means you are having second thoughts but take a fucking win where you can claim one. You imply that us girls are all naïve and that could well be, at least in my example, but like … speaking on things that people actually will read if it is given to them, Ms Gwillim, you really should publish … here I will send it to you, hold on.”

She pulled out her phone. Atty had twice tried to ring her, which seemed excessive until she recalled promising in the lose way of ones never kept that she would text him when she reached the Fort. Kitty pressed her lips together. She could not call him now or at any point in the foreseeable future. Expecting she truly did have a way out of all of this, she had overplayed her hand and given away his position in the process. She should probably block him on all of her socials as well, just to play it safe. >> _I think you were right,_ << she typed back quickly after hitting send on a Word documents, >> _they are not reasonable, they are Royalists – Hewlett-ists, maybe. I don’t know how to fix this but I don’t want you to try. Forget about me, okay? I'm sorry._ <<

>> _Hewlett and Simcoe only got off on corruption_

_charges because Talleyrand gave a nod off on the_

_most bullshit expert-witness testimony I’ve ever seen,_

_and I have the whole thing right in front of me. They_

_are stalling. They are panicked. I’ll show you. Come back._ <<

He wrote back within seconds of her hitting send. Kitty’s heart sank further.

>> _I didn’t want to involve you in this._ <<

>> _You didn’t. I promise._ <<

“Clisson et Éugenié?” Gwillim raised an eyebrow, looking rather like her aunt when Kitty lifted her gaze to meet the editor’s.

“Yeah,” Kitty tried to collect herself before leaving to try and put out another fire with petrol, sending her address to Atty and a message to her neighbour letting her know that he would be coming by to pick up the key. She hoped he was right. “That is what my mates and I want to see printed. Preferably prior to the January transfer window. As soon as possible. This Sunday if you can swing it. Not to take your own apocalyptic tone here, but there is actually a lot more at stake than the start of a partnership that could see you take a lot of the assets and influence you so covet I’m not an expert in world affairs but I gather that France is looking at the UK to break for reasons of their domestic politicking, trying to fix problems they can’t otherwise address by using us as a warning to get emergency measures to pass that would otherwise insult the ideals on which the republic was founded.

“And the problems France is facing right now?” Kitty squinted. “They are really bad on their own. Did any of you even notice that Ajaccio saw its government collapse a few weeks back?” answering her own rhetorical as flatly as her cracking voice could allow, “No, of course you didn’t: there was a bloody football match going on at the time and one of the players is named Napoléon or something. And now Talleyrand wants to take him up as a client and … okay, I really, _really_ didn’t want to bring this up … but I would kind of be trying to appeal to his graces were I you because with the Duke of Richmond being well … _dead_ and Mr Simcoe’s name being the only one in the conversation of the who-why-whats, you should probably be playing nice with the guy whose opinion helped get you off of whatever you and Edmund Hewlett were facing charges for a few years back, because that case? Marie told me last time we Skyped that her dad and former Inspector Ferguson are both freaking out because Hanger’s said Fouché is helping some dude named Sal at Police Scotland have it reopened based on new evidence. But what do I know? I’m just a silly little girl found in a bad position, but … still one preferable to yours, me thinks.”

With that, she stood to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So … as acknowledged up top, I haven’t been super update-y lately, but I’ve written around three chapters worth of material, and you’ll get the rest in short(-ish) order.
> 
> … But that is not exactly the explanation I owe you here, is it? Oh – what is? Time to name drop:
> 
> **Historical**
> 
>  **Copenhagen** was the Duke of Wellington’s warhorse, specifically the one whom he rode at Waterloo (and who nearly killed him as he dismounted after the battle.) Today he is honoured in statues, paintings and other forms of fine arts, including a serialised radio drama about a fictive romance between himself and Marengo. Still a better love story than Twilight? Tja, definitely a better love story than …
> 
>  **Clisson et Éugenié** which, I kid you not, is a historical romance novel written by Napoléon Bonaparte. I’ll go into more detail on it as the plot progresses as I don’t want to spoil you to anything, but if you want to read the work in the meantime, it is 18 pages long and you can find it in French and English on Amazon. That said I don’t know if I could argue that it is worth it on its own, but the commentary (which ranges from scholarly to 'YouTube Comment Section', often within the scope of the same response) is totally worth at least a google.
> 
>  **Joachim Murat** was one of Napoléon’s marchals, more specifically, he is the first guy you notice in any period painting (unless the artist really did a job of centring the Emperor, and even that is kind of a stretch) because homeboy is always so flamboyantly costumed that one would be challenged to think that he hadn’t just won the ESC. But more on him when he actually enters the narrative.
> 
> Since I didn't bother noting the historical allusions when this work first started posting, I will just take this space to mention because it came up in this chapter as well - **the sex allegations concerning Ban Tarleton and his teenage ward**? Not a product of my imagination but rather an early tabloid staple. To put in some context though, the main critique was not the girl's age but how it play into the dynamic between himself and his long-time mistress, the poet Mary Robinson.
> 
> **Modern**
> 
> I’m not really sure how Napoléon has manged to dominate these notes in a chapter specifically focused on Welly’s ex, but, meh, there you go. This dude though, who went around crowning himself emperor and shit and celebrating his birthday as ‘Fête de la Saint-Napoléon’ would probably come off as humble in comparison to fabled football trainer José Mourinho, who dubbed himself **The Special One** back when he well … won things. Has anyone in the press used that phrase since Mou got the sack at Man U to anyone’s knowledge? If you know of an example hit me up in the comments.
> 
> In the time line of this story though, it should be remembered that Mou was still at Old Trafford, in constant conflict with French midfielder **Paul Pogba** , of whom all of my favourite stories involve his (really, disconcertingly well document) outbursts over the card game Uno.
> 
> In 2018 LFC legend **Steven Gerrard** took over the Rangers job, a position he still holds at time of publication. Unfortunately for me as someone having to clarify all of this, he never did anything in his life controversial or remotely interesting, so he doesn’t really belong in the notes section.
> 
> Anyway … I think that is actually it. As always, I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Up Next: Mary ruins an alliance, Abe and Aberdeen meet up in the gent’s, and the third guy you notice in every period painting (the one clothed in an operatic interpretation of ‘the orient’ …) takes all of his frustration on misguided liberalism out on a Persian carpet.


	6. The Egyptian Campaign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Napoleone actualises his affections hours before his novella hits the British press.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with Notes.
> 
> So something positive has finally come out of the pandemic, Tele5 will be screening BangBoomBang every Friday for the next year.  
> We'd never top this film anyway, even without production restrictions in place, so, yeah - guess how I am starting my weekend.  
> What are you lovely faces getting up to?

For the first twenty-nine years of Roustam Raza's life, he had only had two conversations relating to his heritage. He had these conversations _often_ , to be sure, but until quite recently -specifically, until the interminable white search for woke-ness had migrated to his formally unpretentious neighbourhood and eventually, his spare bedroom - there had been precisely two dialogues of geography and culture in which he was made to take part, and Raza had long since committed his lines to memory.

The first of these was short and uniformly one-sided - new clients commenting on his accent by way of asking where he was from out of some profane desire to mention that they had once been to Cairo. Or Gaza. Or Istanbul. Or somewhere else almost entirely irrelevant to his own placement that did nothing to make these people seem any less middle-class (as Raza suspected was what drove such a line of inquiry being that his answers were here uniformly dismissed with reverence to the asker’s experience.)

Raza knew well his role within this ‘dialogue’. More often than not, he would smile, nod, and say something that caused them to feel either particularly ‘worldly’ ( _‘That is fascinating!’_ ) He was very seldom aggravated by variables existing independently of the exchange to personally extend it to its logical conclusion ( _‘No, I’ve not myself been nor do I have any plans to go … what with the present political situation being what it is.’_ ) though sometimes -again, he suspected in their not wanting to seem par- his clients would themselves say something to such effect and Raza would move to shift the subject to a lighter course with a jovial white-lie ( _‘Perhaps someday’; ‘Maybe when I have kids’; ‘Just as well, I get seasick quite easily and I would be fully hopeless on a cruise!’_ ) In truth, he had no great want to return, especially surrounded by sunburnt tourists preoccupied by the task of taking photos with their tablets as though they thought the people with whom they shared a workplace would have any great interest in viewing them.

Sometimes, however, Raza found himself bored enough by the whole of it that he offered a line about problematic politics before those too-eager to erroneously connect. This proved most amusing after a peaceful transition of power or something as equally unsensational as to not make the morning news, for the well-travelled (and therefore worldly) always seemed to nod and agree rather than verbally confessing their own ignorance of the matter.

Mostly though, he found himself listening to an interchangeable narrative about pharaohs and pyramids as he looked to the clock waiting for the hour to be over, every so often falling into the consideration that one of these days he would at least have to walk past the Louvre and have a look at the ones made of glass; he had, after all, been living in Paris long enough that such seemed due –

Sometimes. Almost. Perhaps, Raza reasoned, he would fell something that closer approached urge if he owned a straw hat, sandals, and some redemptive Apple product around which to base his personality.

In contrast to this absence of intellectual or emotional stimulation, there was the second sort of conversation that sprung up on occasion around his heritage, the grabbing-a-beer-after-work-with-some-mates kind where he would challenge or be challenged by his more learned (and far more gainfully employed) friends of similar backgrounds over the latest nomenclature in the news, asking if calling everyone a ‘Nazi’ did not in fact detract from a general understanding of true racism and other forms of bigotry, a question on which his table could not seem to reach a consensus beyond a statement of the obvious: that their half-drunken debate was likely more lively than any being had behind the closed doors of the elected officials most fond of dramatically adding anachronistic and frankly unsuited language to any legal offence. Then they moved on to sport, women, money, and all of the rest of which felt just outside their reach.

It was for the best. Politicians, after all, were given to having a version of such discourse on social media, and by the virtue of their existence in the broader conversation about equality, Raza found he was excused from truly holding any strong opinions of his own on such delicate matters. Why extend the effort as long as white people were determined to use his presence as prop and punctuation? Progressives were too enamoured by the sounds of their own voices to much care for his (for whom they considered themselves to speak) and conservatives (who could not be bothered to listen) had a tendency to imagine him in a turban rather than a tracksuit, never having quite come to grasp that the caricatures that informed their world-view were as unprecise as they might have otherwise proven offensive.

It was not that Raza never experienced ‘discrimination’ as those on campaign or looking to value signal were so keen to cite, but at a meter-ninety, he rarely found himself in situations where hatred was expressly voiced and, in these rare instances, he never engaged it beyond offering an argument that his would-be-assailants were too ignorant or otherwise too drunk to properly engage ( _‘Pretending for a moment that you believe everything you say to be true – the beer in my hand notwithstanding, of course – that I’m in fact a Salafist who believes the Fifth Republic should be alone subject to Sharia Law and that I’d as happily die for this ideal as I would kill for it – forgive me, I have to ask just from a logical standpoint: presuming this truly is your read of the situation of finding yourself face-to-face with a bloke with a beard, why would you then be so bold as to start this same fight unarmed and unequipped?_ ) _’_ after which he would stand and count on cowardice to end an argument he afterwards knew himself to have lost by the simply act of verbally entertaining it. Despite his disinterest, Raza knew (as all even nominally Muslim immigrants did) that if someone associated Islam with violence, saying anything to the contrary only confirmed this bias – defending one’s self however calm, controlled and collected was only to reinforce a belief that ‘newcomers’ could not conform to the nation’s character -

Perhaps, he thought, he was doing just that. Sometimes he could not help but to consider that all Frenchmen were fucking animals when the opportunity to seem ‘political’ in either direction presented.

Sometimes he extended this unkind assessment to the west in its entirety, absent, of course, of individual party allegiance or public stance.

Lately, he had found himself wanting to cry to anyone who might listen that his self-assuming allies were ever bit as detrimental to his inclusion in ‘ _liberté, égalité, fraternité’_ as those they claimed to ideologically oppose.

Lately, he had been forced into having far more complex conversations about where he was from and the perception that predicated where society was and where exactly he now stood within it (and usually, when he would better like to simply lay down and go to sleep.)

Lately, he missed the musings of AIDA ships and the eyerolls he shared with others whose appearance or accent subjected them to a version of the same. He missed being a bystander, he missed being unseen - assumed but (mostly) unasked. He missed the extent to which he could pretend his answers went unevaluated.

But this shift had been long in coming. He might have done more to anticipate its approach.

Roustam Raza had a studio flat in a sector of Paris which Fox News had referred to as a ‘No-Go Area’ to the instantaneous mockery of the whole of the city. Having himself otherwise successfully avoided enough of modern history as to have been ill-informed as to how such incidences were ultimately given to playing out, he had shared in the general laughter, joking to his mates that he could well do without the presence of ugly Americans picking through a few poorly-read phrases of the kind termed ‘useful’ in travel guides - asking for directions to places he had never personally felt any impulse to himself visit (aside from the occasional reminder that he could just as well see a bloody pyramid in Paris if he so chose.)

This, however, had not been what had transpired from the negative press - something his friends from the old neighbourhood had joked somewhat darkly (even for them) owed itself to the fact that people given to believing an open air vegetable market was a front for a terrorist cell did not own passports and did not need to, for they also were given to believing that a DC pizza parlour housed a child pornography ring in a basement that did not exist (and rather could not in a swamp, architecturally speaking, but this said little as logic had no seat on the right.) There had been no drought of American tourists, and for all the better warnings of conservative media, white people in the more general sense were happening to the block to effects far worse than disparaging language itself disarmed by laughter and parody.

These warnings, he had been to late to realise, were better meant for him, and he ought to have done well to heed.

Gentrification was a nightmare.

Raza would have preferred to have found himself in the promised warzone than this hell of ignorance posing as acceptance.

Young professionals from comparatively affluent backgrounds who generally held incomes that exceeded their needs for basic sustenance had of late begun moving to his street en masse with the idea that they were somehow ‘enlightened’ by virtue of proximity to those such as himself whom they made a show of ‘accepting’ by being constantly attentive of differences they perceived (even where none otherwise existed.) These newcomers earned better and thus expected better, and where Raza had been generally content with the initial ramifications of their arrival – regular trash pickup; a café at the end of his street that had been so slow to register as a white space (which was to say that the origin of his accent was inquired into with his every ‘juste un café, s'il vous plaît’) that he still semi-regularly visited; and the almost intoxicating scents from the incense and candles the encroaching natives seemed to burn in association with yoga (which he had come to assume they all practiced) - but all the same, the rise in rent in conjunction with maintenance that had only become a concern of his landlord after the buildings mail slots became increasingly _French_ in distinction was too high of a price to pay for an area that was still itself shit (to be perfectly fair to it) despite its present and persistent state of being robbed of its individuality by ‘progressive’ individuals.

Raza had thus given up his ‘bedroom’ which had once rather been an office (his futon unable to be unfolded inside and himself too large for a standard mattress) trading a desk for a daybed, adding doors to one of the two Billy bookshelves he had inside to make it resemble a wardrobe and buying a ‘Himalaya Salt’ scented candle for the photo-op to accompany his listing, posted both ironically and erroneously as ‘fully furnished flat in up-and-coming area.’

To his minor horror, he had received seven applications in the same hour he posted the offer to a roommate search.

To his growing regret, he had selected one Napoleone Buonaparte over the other applicants - an art student (either promising or merely pretentious); three separate girls who ‘lived’ for said yoga (and had perhaps never so much as heard of deodorant – at least in part explaining the penchant for scented candles among that kind); a middle aged man with an eye-twitch who had asked Raza if he would be willing to accept rent in ‘product’ as opposed to the price he had asked for in cash; and a delegate from Les Verts whom Raza considered would have made a decent flatmate on his own merits but whom he did not want representing the district or its changing demographics.

Napoleone, by far the most usual of the lot, was in a sense exactly what he might have expected from someone seeking housing in an area destined if not specifically designated for gentrification, but for the fact that Raza’s personal experience and expectations had only two dialogues -

his new roommate – in stark contrast to all what he had known of Europe when his interactions with Europeans had been rather limited - never ceased in conversing and was never satisfied with what Raza personally felt comfortable contributing.

And fucking hell was it ever annoying.

Napoleone, of course, _meant_ well (as all liberals were proud to say they did) and, politics (perceived and otherwise) aside, they two got on well enough, but for the fact that the little lad was very quick to point out and criticize prejudice as it presented in other people.

Raza personally was not allowed such reactions. There were rules. He knew them. But he had never before been in a situation where he was forced to internalise that these restrictions in conversation and conduct did not apply to the majority. Made to directly reckon with inequality and discrimination at close range in the way they actually manifested, Raza found that he was in fact every bit as angry as he had long been told by people in power or with huge social media followings that he was or had well ought to be.

He had come to hate the words he casually identified with as much as he did all of the conflicting assumptions which he had spent the better part of his adult life trying to escape; he could not be ‘secular’; he could not be ‘integrated’ for these ideas were empty when associated with a sense of self that they at once negated.

Raza had once considered that the difference between the east and west bore some equivalence to ‘community versus individual’, himself loosely orientating more towards the former for reasons he had only recently come to realise had nothing to do with latent spirituality. Napoleone, he observed, in contrast to himself, never needed to offer a caveat to his own identification beyond the same three jokes he alternated around his given name (each more tired than the last.) He never had to tell anyone that he was an atheist, or agnostic (or whatever language properly encompassed his personal scepticism when asked) but that he saw a great value in religion in terms of social order. He could likewise be proud of being Corsican or of having Italian parents without having this detract from his standing as a French citizen.

In short, Napoleone hardly ever had to defend himself against preconceived assumptions, and where he did, he stood a chance of proving successful -

And that, Raza supposed, more than any economic factor, was what true ‘privilege’ was.

Not that there was any value in voicing as much; he would not be heard on this even if he so dared for the assumptions Napoleone made about him were themselves difficult to correct with a statement of fact. Raza could not use the stale line _‘I didn’t walk here from a war zone.’_ that his mates sometimes dropped if an effort to leave an ambush born from what had ought to have been a simple transaction (of the coffees they ordered to go) – for in his case it was true only in terms of logistics. He could likewise not properly explain that he was ‘not especially religious’ to someone conveniently unconvinced when it came to his own Catholicism but who had a fetish for Islam that conflated religion with cultural - a culture, or so Napoleone was fond of telling Raza that he ‘ _should not feel pressured to discard_ ’ – whatever the fuck that actually meant in any given setting.

Perhaps most aggravating of all, Napoleone thought of himself as an ‘ _immigrant, too_ ’ which was purely audacious in Raza’s view. He came from another départment. Paris was its own animal, to be sure, but their experiences had no equivalency.

Again, not that there was any use in trying to point this out.

Raza had been born in Georgia to a pair of government bureaucrats who had fled the country during the Autumn of Nations, something he personally had no recollection of being that he had been carried across several boarders in a nappy, eventually winding up in Malatya where his ethnicity Armenian mother fell ill and was quick to join thousands of her distant ancestors in an unmarked grave well before he had even been able to walk. His father had paid a coyote a year’s salary when he had been a boy of seven to take him to Europe prior to a national election that would eventually bring a dictatorship to power, fearing their status as an ethnic minority (of any description) in a race fought on who could conceive of the cruellest punishments for Kurdish rebels.

Raza had not seen his father since.

As his family had fled to Turkey without papers, he had no means of searching for him now.

Sometimes he liked to imagine the old man had gotten out, too, before things had gotten worse.

Mostly, however, he knew this to be unrealistic.

Sometimes the idea that he in fact had and had not sought him out hurt just as much as the idea that his father had died in the violence he had sacrificed everything to help him escape, for there very little difference between abandonment an actual loss, a reality every imagined scenario forced him to consider. Sometimes he closed his eyes and saw the bullets fired at his windows by an army of a country that Britain and France had forgotten to include on a map when dividing up the remnants of a fallen empire. Sometimes he instead saw his father at a Turkish police station, unable to defend himself against the erroneous charges all governments liked to level to defend their own existence. In modern France, Robespierre and Saint Just used the words ‘right-wing extremist’ as vague justification for killing everyone who disagreed with them; in Anatolia where time did not seem to exist since Erdogan had taken office, the government simply said ‘Kürdistan İşçi Partisi’ to the same result (but then the Turkish language was far less nuanced.)

Mostly, however, Raza shook such images from his mind and satisfied himself with the conclusion that his father was in fact still alive and looking for him – he just had no idea where to begin.

After all, how could he? Raza had never made it to Germany as planned.

When refused access to a port in Italy where he had been headed with 54 other refugees in a raft made for 16, Roustam Raza had been rescued by a vessel that had taken him back to its native Egypt, placed him in the care of the Red Crescent, who had not believed him when he had given his age which he listen in every language he knew and presumed useful: Yedi. Seven. Sabaa. Sept. He had thus undergone several X-rays and physical screenings which uniformly verified something he had tried to explain several times over, only to have a very different question posed to him when all of this needless verification was through:

_‘Do you play handball?’_

He did not and told the doctors as much, and as such the question was rephrased:

_‘Do you want a passport?’_

By this point, Raza had seen exactly enough of the world to be able to conclude that such would be a quite useful thing to have and answered affirmatively.

Egypt, he soon came to learn, was having something of a renaissance in the world of sport - which was to say that the year prior The Pharaohs had caused a huge [c]upset in Iceland by ousting the then World-Handball-Champions Romania from the quadrennial tournament of the same name, and the country had as such made it a government prerogative to capitalise on this success. And so, Roustam Raza played handball, eventually at the highest level domestically, eventually for the country who had validated his existence expressly for this purpose.

In 2009, Raza had impressed enough in Croatia despite his country’s 14th-place finish that Baekkelaget (which he had never learned to pronounce properly, not that it ultimately mattered in the slightest) made him an offer which he was quick to sign, knowing little of Europe but enough of sport to understand that he would not be able to play indefinitely, eager as he was encouraged to earn as much he could in the fifteen or so years that physicality allotted. He left Egypt right before the Arab Spring erupted in bloom and subsequently managed to miss out on the rise and fall of (actual) white nationalism in Norway as well, having taken ill promptly upon landing in freezing Oslo and being confined to bed for the most of it. He should not feel badly, he had been told by more doctors. This was normal for athletes who came to Europe from the southern Hemisphere in their first season. Raza had wondered if the club physicians would be able to locate the equator on a coloured classroom globe but kept this inquiry and all that it implied to himself. Ultimately, (geographical knowledge notwithstanding) they had been right. In time, Raza did start to feel better. In the three months he had been fit to train, he had made close friends with a team mate, changed agents on this recommendation, and thus found himself part of a player-swap with PSG, his name added to a list it had really no place being by that point.

Though Raza - acclimated after a year to European weather and far more comfortable in the relative south of rainy Paris than he had been in snow-covered Oslo - achieved some success with his new club, he was cut from the roster along with three others (and the women’s handball team in its entirety) in congruence with Javier Pastore’s signing to the footballing side, something he could accept as a common casualty in larger sports clubs, for he had few other options open to him having been confined to the bench for nearly as long as his sick-leave had proven.

But not all was lost. At around the same time as PSG was discovering the depths of its pockets without quite yet having figured out deficit financing, the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Cairo; and as though the All Merciful had (despite Raza’s absence of religious observance) personally ordained him to escape every incident and upturn that would ever be described as ‘history’ in the world he lived, more locally, a faction of ultra-liberals had formed in the Assemblée Nationale, pushing reforms they would never actually pass but providing enough of an influence to the press of public mood to provide a short window of profit.

And so it was, at long last, that Roustam Raza found himself in the position to fulfil his life’s ambition, at least, as it had been defined by his father.

He had gone to the Hôtel de Ville, attempting to apply for asylum. The fact that he was in procession of a valid work-visa (despite his recent unemployment) denied him this particular designation, but he was given paperwork to fill out all the same, an address of where he would need to go to verify that he spoke French, and a list of names and historical events he was meant to have enough of a grasp of that he could correctly order these things on a 33-question multiple choice test for which he received a passport and the distinction of being a dual-citizen, this time from the city’s mayor directly with all of the pomp and circumstance white people seemed to think was needed for two people from different backgrounds to shake one another’s hands.

By that point, Raza had found gainful employment in a private fitness club as a personal trainer, which meant he spent most of his days in the company of painfully young models, former starlets afraid of the own fading light at twenty-five, and rich retirees who had nothing better to do with all of the time the suddenly had than make conversation about the time they went to Cairo in the mid-nineties on an AIDA cruise ship (which was exactly the kind of company and constituency he expected Paul Barras of himself keeping, though he had kept this to himself for the oddly publicised handshake.)

He had explained all of this to Napoleone, of course, not in the sense of ‘ _who I am is corollary to where I am from’_ but rather as a way of relating _‘isn’t it funny that we two have both had our lives and geographies dictated by the fact that sport financing is somehow still completely ignorant of Adam Smith?’_ but in the end, all had been for nought.

He saw that now. He saw, rather, the physical counter to any hope he had held out of reaching a productive understanding with his flat mate.

Upon entering his flat at five in the morning on a Saturday after his a side hustle had seen enough success that he had been able to spend the rest of the night out on the town, still with enough money for two months of utilities in his pocket, a bag of fast-food breakfast (bacon-egg-and-cheese) in his hand and a subsequent smile on his face – he spotted _it_ and in so rethought every interaction he had ever engaged in with ‘the emperor’ with far less inclination to accommodate or excuse the man’s intellectual eccentricates.

 _It_ , specifically, was a large Persian carpet that seemed at first to replace the coffee table from which all meals were eaten.

It was confused cultural appropriation taken too far.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” his guest shrugged, pushing past him to recover the small table from where it had been repositioned between the futon and Raza’s own wardrobe. “It is like … it is not from IKEA, so you bring a girl back here and she’ll be more inclined to think that you take yourself seriously and therefore more _inclined_ as a rule. Man, I spent funds you know I don’t have on that sofa, and I swear it has seen more ass just for the _implication_ of adulthood. Trust me, you’ll be alright. Look, there is even an actual book on the coffee table! Rocking the whole adulting thing, you are. Don’t worry about the fact that it doesn’t go with anything else, whole town’s going for this faux-ethnic aesthetic, at least since I left.”

“Were that I had the same mind to flee when I had the chance,” Raza cursed himself. Louis-Étienne used to live next door before the rent increase forced him and his apprentice’s salary out of the quarter. He was training to be a cook and worked long shifts at a restaurant with three stars that could not be bothered to pay staff a monthly salary that would afford a menu at the same establishment. Not that such much bothered his friend. Louis-Étienne had the patience to play a long game and was willing to make personal sacrifices for the pursuit of success. Raza, by contrast, had no great sense of ambition of which to speak, and when he felt this was being challenged, he spoke instead of having ‘principles’, many of which were adapted in the moment in response to mood or economic reality. They had met up by chance that evening – or rather, in the early hours that preceded the rise of the sun- stopped in a central Metro station after work, watching a fight that had broken out between two fellow derelicts when they had heard one another’s voices in the commotion and began contriving plans for thereafter. Raza had then been spotted by someone he loosely knew through his roommate (though hardly well enough to except an invite to some after-hours event at a bar down the street when he could not much remember the man’s name) and had rather gone off to Mc Donald’s and flirted with the cash-girl until getting her to agree to let him order off the breakfast menu hours before it came into effect. Successful in his quest (though he had had to accomplish it without assistance) and with a new number in his mobile he had debated dialling that same day until coming home to an unfortunate renovation, he had gone to the bar where Louis Étienne (or ‘Ali’, as Napoleone and presumably all of his friends were given to referring to the man) had bought him a shot in exchange for a bagel (which he had not though Raza had it within himself to deliver), hastening to leave his borrowed company without making excuses, commencing outside that Raza had been quite right in what he had not in fact said, the excursion had been a waste and had left him without a single antidote worth relaying.

“What book? It better not be the fucking Quran,” Raza sighed, sitting down on his old, worn sofa cum bed, burying his head in his hands before glancing the title. Goethe. He might have had equal cause to reason as much but being robbed of prop and pulpit he resigned himself to citing lesser sins, “you ever read it?”

Louis-Étienne nodded slowly, “Aw … shit, I see what is going on here.”

“You do?” Raza blinked, further removed from the reaction than he had ever been close to the point he had hoped to make in approaching complaint.

“You ever see that show ‘Informer’?”

Raza gestured to his wall and its absence of a flat screen for which he had no need – he had the news on 12 different televisions at the gym, was not particularly interested on concentrating his attention on other people’s interpretations of intricate dramas he had consumed previously in text-format, and anyway, he had not the room to house one even if he had the income for cable.

“It is on Netflix,” Louis-Étienne dismissed. “Anyway, it is set in England, and there is this Paki -”

“You can’t say that,” Raza warned.

“By the standard you lately seem all-too-keen to enforce, my skin is darker than yours which means that when it comes to ironically intended racial slurs you have no say, but I can say whatever the fuck I want,” his Versailles-born friend stuck out his tongue, “But ignoring the fact that you actually sound like your ‘oh-so-hated’ flatmate when you start up with that politically correct shit, this show, right? Fully normal bloke as you or I would define one, gets arrested for some misdemeanour and as a means of taking care of the charge, ends up working with anti-terror to uncover an attack, forcing his way into all that stuff conservative media makes out to be more pressing than it is, and then ironically in the end there is a shooting, but it is carried out by the main guy’s little brother who was completely innocent or would have been had he never played at this role.”

“And you think Napoleone is an informer?” Raza asked.

“Au contraire, I think he is trying to get you to play that role for him. Apparently, according to his team anyway, Napoléon has friends in the police department via his Joséphine -” Raza could not help but laugh at hearing Rose referred to in that way however poor his mood otherwise was, “- and according to you,” Louis Étienne continued after a brief pause for the appreciation he had been shown, “over on the other side of hat same building the lead prosecutor is out to make anyone look like an enemy of the state, and what is worse, I think they all actually believe their own propaganda,” he said with enough mockery that it was clear he meant nothing of it, however sound the argument in fact seemed. “Plus,” he seemed to consider almost genuinely, “remember when we went out for your birthday and he called me Ali all night? I was like … kind of weird, but okay, you do you -”

“No, it is _not_ okay,” Raza vacantly insisted, his gaze again returning to the horrid rug and his thoughts along with it, “the thing is he is always doing _exactly_ this kind of shit. He made me couscous this week! Couscous!”

“Okay, seriously? I don’t see the problem however you try to make a case for it,” Louis-Étienne shrugged. “With the name thing, Abdullah and Iskandar were there that night, too, so Napoleone might well have heard Éti as ‘Ali’ after several rounds of us all asking him ‘ _wait, your name is what?_ ’ and I felt the difference of like what, a single constant, was too irrelevant for me to correct him on after having a spot fun at his expense all throughout the evening. Plus, he did buy more than a few rounds for the group regardless of what he thinks of the religion you practice … or mostly don’t on a moment’s reflection, so I really don’t see why you’re always making this out to be so damn offensive. As to couscous, free meal is a free meal -”

“Except that it isn’t _free_ – it is _Moroccan_ ,” Raza stressed.

“It is delicious,” Louis-Étienne shrugged, “what have you against a few empty carbs?”

“I’m a personal trainer.”

“Yeah but it is not like you studied that shit.”

“It is like the carpet,” Raza returned, “Napoleone thinks Middle Eastern culture is homogenous and attempts to embrace it by holding himself somewhat above it, like we all need to give him credit for being ‘open minded’ when all he is doing in enforcing stereotypes that have been allowed to exist for centuries because liberals identify their own ideas of self by conceptualising the other against all contradicting evidence simply to make a show of those high minded ideals they only, ultimately serve to hinder. It is racist, it is as racist as the right despite the seeming contradiction in attitudes and vocabulary.”

Again, Louis-Étienne merely shrugged. “It could just be that he is trying to expand himself and it is not like you are exactly helpful with your whole ‘not my place’ stance on anything that might actually classify as a critique whenever you are talking to a white person. You see that you do that … don’t you?”

“He seemed legitimately surprised earlier in the week when I mentioned I’d read Faust,” Raza commented, trying to win sympathy by addressing the struggle on a level to which he knew his friend could relate.

“Jesus,” Louis Étienne spat, “is he really that suburban? Does he call you ‘articulate’ and drive a four-door sedan?”

“No,” Raza admitted, “but he blinks sometimes when I indicate that I can be.”

“You know what your actual problem is?” his friend considered as he continued to scold, “you actively internalise all the labels society is willing to assign, you are just as guilt in the carpet and couscous as the people who think themselves to be accommodating you in some fashion. Take a lesson from the black community – keep up with your demands but set limits all the same – ‘this is ours, we made this, this is not for you’ and you’ll still get some ignorant-ass questions and reactions but it will come from an want to understand rather than an assumption that they already do.”

“You are probably right,” Raza gave.

“I mean, I had one conversation with the guy, you live with him and can’t even say that much I’d venture. Not a halfway open one, anyway, which is probably what he most wants and would probably go a distance to improving both of your perceptions of fault. Go wake him up,” Louis Étienne suggested, “see if he wants breakfast.”

“Do you know what this is?” Raza asked as he unwrapped his hard-won breakfast-sandwich. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” he identified, pointing to the bread, egg and bacon.

“What is the other half of the bagel then?” Louis Étienne squinted.

Raza did not have an answer. “It is still liberté,” he tried.

“That analogy makes no fucking sense.”

“It does when your ‘fellow immigrant’ roommate refuses you to eat pork.”

“At least you didn’t call your sandwich ‘integration’, so I will take this as a win. Give me one - hey!” he shifted, shouted, “Nappy Roots, get up, we are eating! Apparently, we’re talking about the French Revolution, so this is important!”

“Should I put a pot on?” Raza asked as he rose, surprised at how soundly Napoleone seemed to be sleeping.

“Nah, I just spent eight hours on my feet, I want to crash after this,” Louis-Étienne answered.

“You sleeping here then?” Raza asked and offered.

“If you’ve no problem with it. I miss the old neighbourhood. Want to go out for a walk in the morning, have a look around, see what has changed, see if I’ve got any babies I don’t know about -”

“Nah, you’re good. You’re good. Hey, Napoleone?” Raza walked into the bedroom to find it disconcertingly empty. “Did anyone at the bar mention PSG B having an away match?” he called out to his guest, mumbling to himself, “I thought that that was not until midweek -”

“Wouldn’t do, would they? Half the team was out last night.”

“No, I know he has to leave a few players behind because of appearance bonuses and accrued bookings so I mean, nothing stopping them from enjoying the city on a Friday night I guess.” But Raza could not imagine Napoleone doing the same of his own concurrence, regardless of what the morning after promised. Had something happened?

“Not exactly professional though, is it? But nah, no match, and Boney wasn’t out to give an account of himself either. Didn’t take him for the type to be quite the social type though.”

“He’s not, wouldn’t be with Rose either – she tactfully keeps him removed from her scene and the way Napoleone mentioned it, sounds like she and her clique were occupied at a salon last night -”

“No doubt plotting another government downfall,” Louis-Étienne snorted.

Raza frowned. “Should I actually be concerned?” he asked as scenarios began playing out in his mind in which the kinds of individuals whom he hereunto assumed only existed in political rhetoric emerged from the night, intending his housemate harm on account of the same fairly innocent (however assumptive) acts of cultural appropriation to which he was given. Should he have made some sort of attempt to correct such behaviours in his flatmate prior to them bordering into intolerable? What if he managed to aggravate someone into action against his person?

“I don’t even know, man. You should accept that maybe he is more interesting than you would allow and leave it there. Ring him in an hour or so, see if you can put the carpet up for sale. When I wake up, I’ll help you move it. I’d put money on someone on this street wanting to buy it, but you know, I have none and you don’t gamble,” Louis Étienne laughed. Reluctantly, Raza joined him, but only briefly.

“No … no something is off here. The whole of it. You were right … I probably should have had words with the guy sooner and shouldn’t now delay on ground of my own comfort.”

“Not at all what I said, but -”

“Where the hell could he even be?” Raza began to curse.

“Maybe he is picking out or picking up curtains or like … couscous,” Louis Étienne taunted. “Just text him that we are already eating and leave it -all of it - until you have cooled off a little. Carpet isn’t all that bad, I mean. Looks pretty adult. Isn’t his girl in her early thirties or something? Maybe it was a gift.”

“Couldn’t be. From what little I know of her, Rose seems a woman of taste. I’m worried,” Raza began to pace.

“So, well done then, for all his pretention and your patronisation of such, you care about the little guy, now let him have his weekend and stop reading more into things that you ought. Or, if you must – think of it this way,” Louis-Étienne moved to suggest, “more ‘liberty’ and all that other shit you said for us without Whitey here to give that pathetic and self-patronising description any credence. I’m not entertaining this anymore though. Worried I’ll get my second wind. I just want to eat and then nod off provided that is still alright.”

“Yeah, you’re fine,” Raza told him, “I just – I’m going to ring all the same before I join.”

* * *

**Eight Hours Earlier**

“I’m surprised you did not invite your little corporal,” Theresa Tallien commented, or as Rose personally interpreted it, _challenged_ in lieu of a greeting. She raised and eyebrow to match her hostess’ inquisitorial expression. It was the first time Rose had seen Theresa all evening, the Talliens’ salon otherwise filled with people whose presence lent itself to a shared feeling of particular importance – conversing with their ideas of self rather than one another in various exchanges that for all of their forced wit no one would recall having had in a weeks’ time. Rose felt as though her own wit was here wasted, the one man with whom she had hoped to speak ostentatiously absent this particular evening.

But not matter, Rose was accustomed to making do.

She had been engaged in such a shallow, frivolous exchange with her ex (of sorts) when her friend approached with her conversation-halting enquiry. Perhaps she was attempting to be helpful, Rose considered, but if such were the case, her friend’s attempt at intervention was in this particular instance misplaced. Rose, shifting to give Theresa a curt, closed smile that was by no means inviting, gestured with her eyes to the man standing beside her, who - to her added embarrassment - chided, “Quite, my love – we’re all growing rather curious.”

“Are you now?” Rose asked, at once sultry, teasing and terribly uninterested. Paul Barras was the epitome of every casual expression of privilege she had come to question in herself in the past several weeks and for reasons she was happy to let him pretend where entirely his own their courtship had effectively ended without the formality of informing their shared friends. There was no need to call attention to the fact now. “Frankly,” Rose addressed her hostess, “I myself am surprised not to have found Fouché here with all of the goings-on.”

“With all of the ‘goings-on’ as you so delicately put it,” Theresa smiled back, “I hardly see how you might venture that to come as a surprise.” Rose felt the sting of the slight dismissal. The inquiry had only progressed as far as it had thanks to her taking an interest in the matter, and she would not have this same curiosity foiled by pretention prior to her reaping its benefits.

“Do you imagine he’s left his office since ringing Edinburgh to inform his Police Scotland counterpart that a commercial florist is more capable than evidently the entirety of their forensics department?” Barras snorted before Rose had a chance to retort.

“To take this further … do either of you think he has left his office since assuming it?” Theresa chimed.

Rose found her eyes fall on the eyesore of a carpet kept for prestige and prosperity. Evidently, it had once belonged to the Shah of Iran, something Rose had always expected was a rather macabre falsity intended to add a several thousand to whatever the asking price had been. Though slightly unnerved by the absence of substance with which her friends had answered her, the sight of swirling florals in rich colours woven into beige over a red mass came as a reminder that they were not always as discerning as she knew they liked to pretend. “It is only,” Rose returned to her hostess, allowing her voice to fall into the mimic of a whisper though she very much intended to be heard, “ I’ve been thinking about the timeline and something doesn’t add up for me. It might be significant, and I was hoping to have Fouché’s mind on such matters.”

The statement was enough to capture Theresa’s interest or, at the very least, invite her to drop her playful act of indifference. “And if I was to offer you the service of mine would you cease being so opaque?”

“Paul and I had lunch on Tuesday when Napoleone was out of town for a match -at least, I was extended an invitation in kind but when I arrived at his office I was directed by a member of staff to the Quai des Orfèvres, so I thought to take the initiative if my would-be liaison chose to be absent,” she chided Barras slightly, “and instead report my suspicion, or, the nearest we might ever find ourselves to a confirmation-there-of directly to the man who could make use of it. When I got to Fouché’s office within the Ministry of the Interior -”

“I still don’t know how you manged without an invitation,” Barras commented.

“I simply did not ask,” Rose responded with haughty nonchalance.

“Oh, so that is how it is then?” her once-lover seemed to tease. Perhaps he would be her lover-once-again as the night progressed, Rose had yet to make up her mind on the matter but her bed had been rather lonely of late and Barras had the benefits of familiarity and physical proximity working to unset all that personal history otherwise placed between them. And he had money. Dirty money, but at least that was something Rose was equipped contend. “It was … an adventure unto itself, shall we say,” she continued the light flirtation, finding a benefit to either scenario in which Theresa picked up on her intent. Rose could not introduce the impoverished, self-imposing Napoleone in a setting such as this, and she knew he would benefit in esteem from speculation as to why – that, or he would be forgotten in the discourse and the small role of influence he had managed to assert ignored or uncovered. She could keep him for herself -she could keep him _safe_ \- as long as she kept him removed from everything that might serve to remind of all she was.

“Fouché was in the process of throwing a fit when I let myself in – you both were,” Rose tested Barras for Theresa’s benefit, “over a municipal leader in England asking for the transcripts of some testimony from around this same time as the thereunto unsolved murder that has so captured everyone’s interest as it speaks to some intention, I gather,” she said, her closed-lip smile matching her assessment for its ambiguity. “And between the two of you, you could not come up with a way to legally refuse to surrender these records to your Liverpudlian counterpart. Oh! Fouché was livid! That was, until I gave him something to send up to his counterpart in Scotland in turn as it were,” she winked with her voice before returning in a slightly sombre tone, “But having had time since to consider the demand of Monsieur Tarleton, understanding the premise perhaps only vaguely I’ll admit, I too have to wonder what the motivation was in making the request in the first place? - especially as since my intrusion into all of this intrigue and outrage, everything has seemed to operate under the assumption that it was a case being opened into the death of an Scottish aristocrat with English holdings whom it happens has been dead for far longer than the public has been led to believe that has prompted this interest Fouché supposes of seeking to incriminate our own government. But there _was_ no investigation open when Tarleton rang, so I can’t suppose his motivation was one in the same.” Fouché had to at least hold some assumption on the matter, Rose thought, however convenient he now seemed to find it to allow her evidence to serve as an excuse. What exactly had she inadvertently silenced?

“I don’t think the case had to be opened officially for everyone with cause to begin lawyering up as soon as news broke that the Duke shot himself,” Theresa interjected.

“Except … this isn’t really about the Duke or any of the pretenders to the throne, is it?” Rose challenged. “This is about a bit of military testing that the Americans were engaged in at the same period. That seems to be what the testimony was addressing, or at least, it seems to be why allegations were ultimately dismissed. I know … from my liaison for such matters, that Robespierre was in contact with the prosecutor representing the Sunday-side team on which this was all tested asking for old case files, only to be answered that he would be happy to surrender what he had if the DSGE came clean about André’s position,” she repeated what Napoleone had last told her, “And I think … I think we should pre-empt this by offering our full cooperation absent the courts. Saint Just wants to strike now, get this all out on the open and,” she quoted her source again without offering any credit to his name, “never interrupt your enemies when they are making mistakes. But,” Rose confessed, trying to find more than a satisfactory, surface answer to the question her contact had posed in almost in passing – perhaps knowing she would be stuck on it until seeing the matter resolved, “I am still lost as to where Liverpool stands in all of this. I wanted to inquire of Fouché if he had had any further contact with the mayor.”

“Having dealt with the wider family recently, I can perhaps be of some assistance,” Maurice Périgord, whom everyone referred to as Talleyrand with reference (and perhaps even reverence) to the man’s unscrupulous cunning said as he approached. “I think the Tarletons are trying to force a war from this, regardless of immediate personal cost. Sir Banastre has nothing to lose anymore - having lost custody of his children on lesser, and less warranted, allegations - but his house would benefit politically and in time economically if he were to be given a pulpit from which to make his confession.”

“Is Fouché still so certain it was him?” Rose wondered.

“Enough so that he could make a case, which I will give you, says nothing at all to the question you raise, save for the fact that should an Englishman -especially one of such prominence – confess, all hell will break loose on the boarder, but as it stands - the fire can yet be contained. The Tarletons and the faction of the English to whom their populist approach to realpolitik has appeal want a short war and they are sure to have one; Fouché himself can be quite persuasive in that regard when it suits and I’ve him all but convinced that civil conflict up north will secure his ends, which is to say that I concur with your … ‘liaison’ as you put it, ‘lover’ as the rest of us might. Pray tell, where is young Napoléon this fine evening?”

Rose felt her nose twitch with an impulse she was not expecting and on which she was not prepared to act. He hated it when people called him that. “Oh, he is making his own battle plans, the sporting kind of which I know you to be all too familiar, Maurice,” she smiled darkly. “But war? Really? That is quite an over-reaction to your own child-lover getting the better of you in this transfer window.”

“ _Allegedly_ ,” he cautioned, “and quite the contrary, I bear the girl no resentment and have much enjoyed the little assertion. I could have moved to block her or call her bluff before she turned such into transfer ban, but it suits the shared interests of the entire cartel - as one might call it - for the Tarleton’s portfolio to remain within family hands. Jane, Banastre and John are too preoccupied with the municipality and its militia of sorts, the sisters by all accounts all process the personal failing of being genuinely decent people, William’s son -the family’s heir-in-name - is by all counts useless, Clayton is a scout rather than an agent so where he’s personally proven himself ineffectual moving the market, I am sure he at least recognised his niece’s potential prior to this FFP business she’s managed to start up. As to Marie herself, how rich it is to watch one of the crown’s many reluctant pretenders train her political skills in what may perhaps be the most corrupt court of contention, European football. But surely you know all about that already. Though, tell us, what is your lover’s agenda in involving himself in all of this?”

“What language! What precisely is your interest in him?” Rose countered. How very dare this man evoke Napoleone so casually as though all in her immediate presence were privy to her most private thoughts. Lover! She longed to call upon him. She longed more to have not all but forfeited such as a possibility. She longed to forget his name in the embrace of a man she had never been at risk of caring for –

And Paul Barras for all of his faults was reliable for a fun little reminder that attachments were fleeting. How had Napoleone even come up in this evening and its course? Why had she thought it wise to question the Directeur Général’s conspicuous absence? What did she care of the evidence she had brought to light so long as it was being used to unseat the enemies whom she happened to share with the rest of the worst people in Paris?

“If I may,” Barras suggested, “I believe our dear Rose is the sole reason for your little target’s political involvement. Christ, Talleyrand, do us the pleasure of trying to seem a bit more discreet in your intentions. Rose, on the other hand, please do carry on as you have been.”

“What am I accused of having been up to?” Rose returned the taunt. Did everyone in her immediate presence miss the comment that a sporting executive and a police commissioner were attempting to instigate armed conflict on foreign soil – or had they already known? Was this the reason why Theresa had been so coy with her? What was no one saying? – at least, what was no one saying to her?

“I caught a glimpse of you two at the opera Wednesday night,” Barras explained, raising his voice just slightly enough that their sphere expanded, inviting others to step closer with the promise of something that did not pretend to be another debate about the nature of divinity. “I might be so bold as to argue that your … _performance_ during the final aria was far more convincing and cathartic than that of the actress playing Tosca,” he laughed. How easy he was to loath at times. How easy they _all_ were, Rose reconsidered in the teasing gaps and telling laughs that followed this comment as though to say none of this was new to their ears.

"O Paul, Avanti a Dio!" Rose attempted to cover her pain with wit, knowing her cheeks were wont to rival the rogue of her painted lips.

"O dolci mani,” Barras returned, “I think those are rather the words you are looking for."

“You are perverse,” Rose whispered, wishing to avoid a further scene, shocked that her once-lover had been witness to this shadowed intimacy, shocked more so that he had waited to address it with her. It was not that Rose was embarrassed of the affair she had begun to actively encourage and engage, but Napoleone, she had begun to consider, was extraordinary as few men who ever lived could claim to be –

He was, at least, far better than any of this.

Rose was loathed to hear him spoken of by those who sounded so very much like her.

At a salary of €3,600 a month, Napoleone earned nearly a fifth of what she took home after taxes – which was not exactly poor, she supposed, even by Parisian standards, save for the fact that he sent most of this home to support his mother and many siblings. Rose had never kept the company of someone whose means and situation proved so restrictive and often found that she forgot her better manners as a result. Napoleone wiped his nose on his sleeve, spoke with his mouth full and never seemed to know quite how to dress even when he bothered to make an effort – renting a tuxedo for a matinee performance of a Christmas standard when dark-wash jeans and a blazer would have sufficed. She did her best to smile, which was to say, she did her best not to simply laugh, but when she slipped Napoleone always managed to surprise her by being more of a gentleman about the faux pas they now shared than Rose personally felt she was deserving.

Her friends would not so much as feign such courtesies, and in their presence, Rose could not help but to consider all of the ways the standards to which she was accustom had turned her into a snob. There was no way she would subject someone who in spite of everything that served to separate them to whispers of ridicule –

After all, she had done a job enough of that on her own of late. She would be better off forgetting him. He would _certainly_ be better off forgetting her. He was a kid. She was at least compliant in potentially aggravating a civil conflict for what by comparison seemed such small gains – namely, the millions her children were due in inheritance from their late father’s estate, currently help up in the court system while his death remained an open investigation which Fouché could so easily see closed if inclined.

“I’m not the one given to indulging in oral pleasure in public,” Barras countered with a wink, “but pots and kettles, point taken. I have to admit though, I too was disappointed not to find him at your side.”

“We have seen quite a lot of each other of late,” Rose dismissed.

“So it would seem,” Barras concurred.

“How much did you -”

“Nothing explicit beyond your facial expression and the position of his … face.”

“Oh my, oh my,” Theresa smiled, raising her glass slightly as though she meant to offer a toast, though to what, precisely, Rose struggled to place. She did not have one of her own in hand and would not all evening long. Rose had driven (much as she detested the exercise in patience) as her children both had social engagements of their own for which they had to be brought across town, and a series of metro transfers would have made her late in a way that was no longer fashionable. The absence of alcohol, however, felt decidedly an error as she gauged the expressions of her peers.

“Truly, dear Rose, I’ll add my curiosity to this as well – why are you denying us of this lad’s splendid company?” Hippolyte Charles approached, adding his voice to the growing chorus of questions being directed at her. Of all the people she wished not to be privy to this seeming attempt of a coup! Besides the hostess herself, Hippolyte, who never took anything in earnest to his credit, was probably her closet friend and Rose felt a twinge of guilt twist in her stomach for all that she was keeping from him that could so easily be relayed without consequence. Hippolyte knew of Napoleone’s existence, of course, but little more of the man than any other casual news consumer. He knew, for example, that she had be given of late to cancelling plans, and like Theresa probably at least suspected that Napoleone was the cause for at least a lot of it, but he had no idea that the man who had so struck her fancy remained in Robespierre’s looser circle. Such would likely concern Hippolyte and Rose did not want to put him in a position for which he was so remarkably unequipped. She could not risk Talleyrand casually making such accusations.

“Must you ask darling?” she questioned with a coquettish and altogether put-on fluttering of her eyelashes and the glue on extensions that she quickly found made the small excursion altogether exhausting. “I’m a deeply selfish and entitled person, I thought that much was evident,” she tried to dismiss, “The fact that I hold him in some affection is precisely why I’m hesitant to invite him here. You would pressure him to change to please you, to meet standards he would inevitably fall shy of and thus attempt to over correct -and to whose benefit? - and I want a few more weeks with him exactly as he is.” It was more honest than Rose usually found herself at liberty to be. She should have left things at self-irony.

“I supposed you taken with him,” Theresa commented, her eyes widening as though to privately signal that she intended to offer a way out of the darkness Rose had invited as she continued with her usual expert showmanship, “but never would I ever -”

“I said something deeply insensitive when we were shopping together and I’m now caught in this constant examination of my own casual classicism,” Rose informed them bluntly, “if not born than certainly nurtured in these salons where we talk about equality and other ideas we attribute to all but really, we only mean ‘all of us’ because we don’t _know_ anyone else, do we?”

“Is the idea that we would find reason not to welcome your latest lover into our little talks not in _itself_ a manifestation of what you think yourself to have cause to scorn?” Hippolyte challenged, perhaps rightly so, before falling into a shrug and a teasing smile, “Or do you worry I would present as a contender for his affections? Maybe you are spoilt!”

“He’s not your type. And I’m _confident_ you are not his.” What she was actually confident of was, at least as far as it concerned her best friend, that Napoleone lacked enough of the substance himself that he would be given bitter jealousy of Hippolyte or any of the men in her immediate circle if he had to learn their names. Never mind that she had met Hippolyte had met at the MAC counter, the implications of which, she was sure, would fail to calculate with the Corsican.

“How can you say that when you are actively working against the possibility of discovery?” Hippolyte asked with a put-on pout, “Anyway,” he continued slowly, “isn’t he the second coach of PSG’s academy players?”

“Saliceti is working to get his the Fenerbahçe job, can’t wait for that one to fall through,” Talleyrand commented. Rose raised her eyebrows at her friend with a challenge, daring him to return with anything that made him seem literate in anything Paris’ most nefarious businessman had just alluded.

Hippolyte’s eyes grew round with amusement at the sudden earnest. “Not what I was asking exactly,” he gave.

“Ah-ha,” Rose found herself smiling, “so … you are hoping I’ll introduce you to him that he will be able to introduce you to ‘Eurovision’.”

“Yes!” Hippolyte exclaimed, “Precisely! I could not even care if he speaks Latin, I would be happy to go shopping with the guy.”

“What is this?” Theresa asked.

“You mean Joachim Murat?” her husband Jean-Lambert laughed beside her.

Shit. Rose thought. She should really be doing more herself in respect to football fluency, but as it stood her knowledge of the game continued to restrict itself to the side lines of Eugène’s Sunday afternoon, the plays Napoleone tried to explain to her in passing and her habit of dubbing those athletes to show up in the tabloids on physical characteristics, a practice that suddenly seemed poor within context. “Probably?” she gave. “I mean there are but so many players who are quite so flash as to recall to mind Europe’s single greatest cultural achievement – one of yours, Maurice?”

“Clearly a Tarleton client.”

“This the fifteen-year-old you fucked?” Jean-Lambert asked in the same - suddenly disconcerting – light tone in which he had entered the conversation.

“Sixteen and no, his name did not come up in the Arsenal debacle which we have since been able to sort to mutual benefit. But that is inspired, Rose,” Talleyrand answered with an oily smile as he repeated, “Eurovision.”

“How quick you are to shift the subject of interest and scandal,” Rose critiqued.

“One might say the same of you,” the agent countered.

“Tell us then,” she continued, “what has you so convinced that Napoleone won’t get that job in Istanbul? From what I’ve been given to understand the turnover rate on the coaching staff this season has rivalled that of Trump’s cabinet in the same time span.”

“Maybe Napoléon could put himself forward as the Secretary of State if his oriental ambitions fall through,” Jean-Lambert suggested dryly.

“You do realise you can only say ‘oriental’ when referring to a carpet, don’t you?” Hippolyte challenged.

“Oh, it is best we don’t talk about the rug,” Barras said. “Madame Tallien has an attachment to the piece I daresay none of us have ever understood.”

“Yes, probably for the best,” Theresa’s husband admitted somewhat awkwardly. “But to answer your question Rose, if doesn’t make sense for Napoléon to go to the Super Lig at this stage in his career in any training capacity.”

“As a player, maybe,” Talleyrand considered, “before following the script of breaking his contract after ten months for Leverkusen, Mainz, Frankfurt in hopes of a two-season stay before getting snatched up by Bayern’s bench or an Italian club of relatively the same level as and of the clubs of Germany’s second tier of the first Bundesliga -”

“Which is to say anyone but Bayern,” Barras interjected, presumably for her ‘benefit’ Rose thought, as men tended to interrupt one another when sport was being discussed in any capacity, seeming to find the whole of the exchange a challenge to their capacity for chauvinism.

“But with a bigger name and more illustrious history,” Talleyrand continued, “which I suppose is to say anyone but Juve who tend to spend big or Milan, I suppose, who prefer to shop locally. But that scenario relies on a hypothesis too late to test in which a better coach had moved Buonaparte from central midfield and had him playing as a false nine, that he was not so evidently enamoured with his own perceived talents with respect to manning a team, and that Fenerbahce was in the position to incorporate that kind of player into their present line up. The club doesn’t need a coach, they need a bloody politician as you suggest, Tallien, and if one is to go on Erdogan’s rhetoric on the subject I should doubt that they will be doing much of any business in the near future, especially with Europe.”

“But you could certainly change that, could you not Maurice?” Rose smiled.

“I could,” Talleyrand returned, “but I daresay I’ve no interest in letting the boy out of Paris when he has proven himself so useful to us all, though I’m _quite_ interested as to why you seem so adamant to see him gone.”

“Not understanding a word of what was just said,” Hippolyte gave, “I’d also like well to admonish you of depriving us all of Napoleone’s company but … I’ve yet to learn what you did to inspire his absence. Rose?”

“How do you consider that you would be in any position to evaluate it in context?” she dismissed.

“Now I must know,” Theresa took over.

“I as well,” her husband echoed.

“In fact, we all must,” Talleyrand insisted.

“Fine,” Rose consented. “When his brother was in town last weekend, we three went shopping – well, _they_ went shopping,” she clarified, “I had Christmas sorted in September finding it a pointless exercise in defeat to begin after everything has already been presented at Fashion Week.”

Hippolyte shook his head. “Amateurs,” he scoffed.

“Well … yes and no,” Rose considered, “Napoleone really spent his time in finding things his family would truly appreciate,” she found herself defending, “it was charming to watch and somehow also disconcerting that I feel like I know them all a bit better for their presumed consumer habits?”

“Wow, the mind on you. You could work for Amazon,” Talleyrand rolled his eyes.

Ignoring this, Rose continued, “Luciano – the little brother - was for his part doing his best to be as cold as possible to someone who made sure that the tour took us past every site he might find it interesting to visit – namely _me_ , so, for fear of a conflict erupting on my count, we went to the Louvre, left Luciano to the masterpieces, went down into the shops downstairs where I decided to look at a case for my tablet that itself cost more than all of what the Buonaparte brothers had between them spent all morning – and with this … this _thing_ in my hand, I answered when Napoleone asked what I planned on getting for the kids, that for _us_ , Christmas was more about creating shared experiences than participating in the mad consumer culture.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Theresa shrugged. Of course she did not.

“It is the hight of privilege,” Rose tried to explain without adding offence where it was not due. “I saw it in his face as I went on to tell him with too much excitement that this year we would be flying up to Scotland so that Hortense could watch the coronation and Eugène will be reunited with his friend Amalie for the first time in the ten months since her family moved – that neither of them have any idea that they are about to get to do what they most want, in fact, the kids think we are going to London and that the only thing separating this trip from one we took two summers ago to the same place was the Crystal Palace v Cardiff tickets I secured for Boxing Day … which, okay, Premiership football, but possibly the most lacklustre fixture I might have picked, to say nothing of the fact that I shelled out for tickets I have no intention of using just to throw the two of them off. But it gets worse. Being so proud that I’d been able to organise all of this with Amalie’s parents, I kept banging on about how this trip was better than a toy because it would be something neither of them would ever forget and at some point in my bragging over smaller matters, I realised that Napoleone has probably never been the UK full stop, that depending on how Brexit works out he may never get to spend enough time in a London hotel to write off the whole city as kitsch -”

“So … twenty minutes?” Hippolyte frowned.

“Fifteen, tops,” Rose counted, “but that is not the point I am making. The thing I’ve been working on to give Napoleone is more of an experience-based thing as well -”

“Taking him to the opera and all but fucking him in your box?” Barras could not help but to tease, “I can’t imagine he or anyone would have grounds for disappointment -”

“No, its … it is not important,” she answered, unwilling to subject herself or her almost-boyfriend to yet more jealous scrutiny. Boyfriend? Rose considered the word as it crossed her mind. Napoleone, unfortunately, was still but a boy – barely closer to her in age than he was to Eugène. She wondered still about the conversation about Richmond’s Ball that might have transpired between Tallien and Talleyrand with disquieting nonchalance, questioning in turn if she was every bit as deplorable in her own increasingly undeniable affections; questioning when something had shifted in Napoleone’s too-sharp features to make him seem inviting, attractive even (if only to her); questioning how things had ever gotten to the point that she seemed to be engaged in regular dialogues with herself over such matters -

Maybe it was better to asphyxiate alone in this snake pit than suffer the inevitable consequence of proximity to sin. Maybe she should call Napoleone and ask him for his presence that this all might end before either of them had a chance to admit in words all the action spoke to.

“What _is_ important to this narrative,” Rose continued, hoping for her friends to come to share her admonishment, “is that hoping to recover something of my graces, having little else to offer being that I’d already asked him to accompany me to Tosca, but more as an apology for his having come with me and Hortense to see The Nutcracker – the emotionless, over-technical Russian version that would turn anyone off to the artform for life, mind,” she expanded quickly, “is that I said that I’d gotten them both books for the flight, which, if he wanted, he could say was a gift from him instead, and at this Napoleone was like _‘No, no – let me take Eugène instead to work on Wednesdays when he has no school that we can work on his passing, and this will take me a bit longer to arrange but Hortense gives me so many drawings that I have nowhere to hang in my flat’_ – his roommate is Muslim and Napoleone worries that he would object to seeing people depicted in paintings which,” she shook her head, “having met the man, I can’t possibly ascribe to, but that is something that I suppose they will need to work out between themselves, but anyway – he said he wanted to arrange for a gallery space some time early in the year, that we could auction off her artwork for charity and give her the experience of success in something she loves and do some good on the side, and I, of course, was nearly in tears – firstly because he is _wonderful_ ,” she found herself gushing, _“_ and secondly because I felt so guilty about our comparative wealth that earlier I had mentioned how I and the children clean out our closets every fall and donate the things we neither wear no play with any more to the battered women’s shelter - which of course, also had echoes of privilage in itself in this context, but true-to-form I manged to make it worse, more concerned with my image than I could bother to be with his feelings, I suppose.

“When we got back to mine,” she swallowed, “I showed him the pile the kids and I had assembled and asked if he wanted to look through it, perhaps there was something his mother and sisters might like -”

“You didn’t!” Theresa exclaimed. “Oh Rose, oh no.”

“I didn’t think of the implications! I was merely thinking that just because something has fallen out of fashion in Paris doesn’t mean a girl out in the provinces couldn’t rock the same, and then, overhearing this, Luciano told me in no uncertain terms that they were not a charity, and Napoleone on his way out a bit later actually apologised for his brother’s behaviour – I apologised in turn for deserving it – and he said that we should make nothing of it, he doesn’t have the room to house is brother in his own flat and it is not as though he could have afforded a hotel for him, even if such were possible to organise at this time of year. And then he actually _thanked_ me for my hospitality and I – well Luciano and I had a curious exchange that same evening, Napoleone came by the bring him to the train station in the morning, picked up Eugène on Wednesday, we went to the opera that night and I’ve not seen him since. But you understand - don’t you? - that after all of that, I simply could not bring him _here_ , what with his old coat and muddy shoes and unkept hair. Pretending any of you have it within yourself to be welcoming, he would only feel smaller for it and – don’t laugh!” she demanded as the group began to erupt in chuckles in various stages of suppression.

“Don’t phrase things in a way where we are given no chance but to,” Hippolyte suggested. “You are nearly ten years older than the kid, at _least_ ten centimetres taller -”

“Only in heels. Don’t exaggerate and, as you were so good to inform me on my thirtieth, one is only as old as they pretend to be on Tinder.”

“Ture.”

“But don’t you see, this is precisely what I mean. You are mean, you are _all_ mean and I am, too, and that is bad enough all on its own.” They were also cruel and spiteful and conniving without cause, but this accusation went too far if Rose was to retain any hope of ending a conflict she might well have helped escalate. 

“We’d love him, I’m sure, as much as you clearly do,” Theresa tried to reassure her when Rose rather wished for her scorn in all matters addressed.

“Suddenly he seems the most interesting man in Paris,” Jean-Lambert agreed.

“And the most allusive,” Talleyrand seemed to complain. “Thanks to you, I now suppose.”

“I don’t love him -” Rose murmured, looking down to trace the tendrils of Theresa’s ugly Persian carpet on which they all stood stiff, wishing someone would be so courteous as to spill a glass of wine as to rid it from the room for long enough that her otherwise fashionable friend might stand to be convinced of parting ways with the piece, meditative as it was momentarily proving –

She had given him up in order not to give in. She felt she would give anything to take it back, to return to the unspoken and all of the doubts it seemed to cast.

“Please! When have you ever considered a thought further after it had already left your lips as you are suddenly so given to in this man’s regard?” Hippolyte demanded.

“You do blush whenever he texts you, dear,” Theresa agreed.

“You should see what he writes,” Rose swallowed, still determined not to meet the eyes of anyone in her vicinity, fearing her own to confess her many regrets.

“Well, now we must,” Hippolyte laughed, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her towards him with the possible hope of relieving her of her mobile.

“What … exactly did you talk about with his brother?” Barras asked.

“He asked me what I wanted with Napoleone and I told him honestly … honestly as I might.”

“Then let us into this web of lies.”

“I said that love, real love, could by its nature not be bound up with expectations. I want to save up and buy a house with him in a quiet quarter, I want to argue with him whenever he invites his relatives to visit, I want to glare at him when I call my mum on Sundays and he indicates that he agrees with her that we should visit the Caribbean more often than we do, I want to fight with my kids to eat their veg and do their homework after a too-long day at work and I want him to reach for my hand in all of this and wordlessly reassure me that all of our real battles have already been fought and won – I want to share in his life and for him to share in mine.

“At the same time, I said, I want none of that. I want him to meet a girl his own age and make all of the mistakes one should in their early twenties and to forget my name entirely in the process. I want him to get this job in Istanbul and at the same time I never want him to be all too far from my side. I want everything and nothing equally, but more than any of that, knowing that the present is fleeting, I want to enjoy it without it being coloured by any concept of what tomorrow might bring, for fate is fickle and intentions only go but so far. And Luciano … he knitted his brow, told me he thinks it possible that I’m too good for his brother – nothing related to economics, but if I knew him at all, I’d curse the day we met. And I answered that I already do constantly, and he smiled for the first time in the course of his visit, thanked me for the afternoon and the use of my spare bedroom and said goodnight. And that was it. Nothing all that curious I suppose however it in the moment seemed.”

“And you did not question what he meant?” Talleyrand asked. Did he know more on the matter than she trusted her heart to ask?

“Why would I?” Rose countered. “I have no right to expectations of this boy that could be heightened or disappointed in any way. Luciano - as his dependant brother - _does_ , and I don’t know either of them or their situation on a level where I could be so bold as to try to intercede on any interest but my own, and my wants are confused and contradictory.”

“They are not,” Barras argued. “you are just shy to admit to yourself that which you freely confess to friends and near-strangers: what was the first thing you said when asked what you wanted from this relationship? Forget everything else, _that_ is your answer, there is no need to pretend to be high minded about something as base as human attraction.” What did he have to gain for pushing this so? What exactly were they all intending? Rose gave Barras a hard, inquisitive look.

“You were right Theresa,” she shifted, hoping to shut all of this down, “I _do_ wish I’d invited Napoleone; in fact, I wish he would come immediately as he first did to my shop. But … mostly because mud would be an improvement on this awful carpet.”

“I agree,” Hippolyte nodded, “you should get rid of it, centuries out of fashion.”

“We are all of one mind on this at least and have been for time immemorial,” Talleyrand said as Tallien nodded, unconscious of either his movements or the look he was receiving from his wife.

Barras smiled wickedly as he watched this unfold. “Given our shared good taste and Napoleone’s intellectual preoccupation with Julius Caesar if his offence speaks to anything in his library, I think I speak for everyone in offering a suggestion as to what we could rather do with it. Rose, any interest in dressing up and changing venues?”

“You are debauched!” she scolded.

“You did not say ‘no’.”

“Pots and kettles,” Rose shrugged.

“Someone better be prepared to reimburse me,” Theresa said bitterly though her face did not match the frown her voice threw.

“Madame Tallien!” Barras laughed, “Where is your Christmas spirit?” 

* * *

Everything she spoke was a contradiction to that which her body so readily confessed. Napoleone Buonaparte again felt himself struggle against the glorious pain that seemed inherent in her touch, his shoulder cramping from beneath Rose’s loose ringlet curls as deep within her slumber she moved to hold him as close as one might.

He had himself awoken hours before to find himself in her arms, his curiosity unfortunately winning out over his inclination to simply remain in what he was half-certain was a dream, lying with his lover beneath Egyptian cotton, her bare skin against his own. He tasted the salt of her sweat as he kissed her lightly on her brow, a hint that memories so recently made were more than a product of his wistful imagination. She seemed so content in his embrace and he felt so safe and secure in hers, even still, even though the morning thus far had informed him of what words written in anger and heartbreak had wrought so long after he had forgotten the act of committing them to paper, much less allowing another to inspire them at all.

Rose Tascher was an ideal no poetry or prose could embody, even approach. Napoleone could not help but to wonder if there were anything of him not owing to accidental circumstance that could have ever managed to inspire her interests. She met everything which convention instructed might serve to impress her with supressed laughter or mild scorn. Nothing he said seemed to win him any affection, at least, not in the way he tried to speak in her company. Sometimes she would repeat a word he felt rather proud of having been able to employ, say it again with a slightly altered emphasis and inquire as to whether he had ever heard it spoken or had acquired it through reading, often able to guess at the author before enquiring with genuine interest as to what he thought of the work or body thereof. If he admitted to softening the ending of an Italian phrase in hopes of forming a French equivalent, she let him speak of circumstances he worried might weaken any chance he had of contending for her affections, responding with intrigue rather than judgement, working to invent scenarios in which he was less given to condemning himself to the insecurities that manifested themselves in her presence – his manners, his accent, his poverty, his stature, his absence of academic qualifications. Around her he actively strived to seem more than the circumstances that confessed him for what he lacked, but Rose wanted nothing of these efforts –

for she loved him as he was. Perhaps, as she instead suspected him of truly being.

He was uncertain the extent to which their conceptions convened. He forgot himself in her presence. He had forgotten a great deal of other fleeting details that would seem significant if brought to the light of day. He longed only to be worthy of her heart. A heart which he worried his exquisite mistress would find broken when she opened her beautiful dark eyes to meet him and the morning with their usual interest and casual mischief. He simply had to find a way to fix this before they could fill with tears in his regard -

but when it came to Rose, he never knew quite what to say. Honesty seemed wasted on her person. Sometimes, she seemed incapable of it. Sometimes, it seemed to comprise her very essence.

Napoleone had not expected to see her the night prior. Frustrated by a coming match he could not field owing to budgetary restrictions, several more appearance based built-in bonus clauses than he would have expected to have to attend in the lower leagues, three players with four bookings likely looking to get themselves an extended holiday and a number of unfortunately timed injuries, he had gone out for a jog, half in hopes of clearing his mind to address the situation anew, half wondering if he himself was still in anything approaching the physical condition he expected of his bench, when, finding himself defeated on both counts, the music he had been listening to stopped, causing him to trip over his own two feet as the tone changed to that of an incoming call. It took him three rings to answer and a moment too long to reply when Rose asked him in a sultry tone if he was home, if he was otherwise occupied or if he was inclined to receiving her company.

Any concerns he had around his lapsed conditioning faded in the mad dash he made back to his flat, opening the door to a debate over whether he ought to tidy the space or take a quick shower in the remaining twenty minutes he had before she was promised to be at his door. In the end he had managed neither, managed nothing but removing his laptop and several books of handwritten notes from the coffee table, replacing these with something that seemed to suit the furniture’s distinction and placing what remained of the rice and veg Raza had cooked them two nights prior from the stovetop where it sat into the refrigerator along with a half-eaten pizza, three bottles of beer, a litre of orange juice well past expiration and fresh celery that seemed misplaced in a kitchen shared by two blokes before the doorbell rang, causing Napoleone to consider that being over-punctual was nearly as bad as being late. He ran his fingers though his hair though he had little hope for it beyond getting it more of less out of his face when he went to answer, only to be pushed inside by two men who, terrifying as their intrusion had proven, went all but forgotten moments after they closed the door behind them and Napoleone was left with the package they carried in.

As he approached, Rose rolled herself out of a terribly expensive looking Persian carpet, slightly too larger for the living area. Clothed in a costume-wig, thin white linin, gold bracelets he knew and a diadem he did not, she tapped two fingers invitingly on the rug before lifting them in attempt to beacon him once more. Not a word was spoken between them until exhausted after the act, their shared amorous gaze was interrupted by a police siren and Rose asking, _‘So, this is where you live?’_

It was admittedly a small studio flat in the worst sense of it, the best of what his personal budget allowed. The door opened into a combined kitchen and living space which also happened to function as Raza’s bedroom and as such was littered with his clothes – clean, dirty and ‘could probably wear again’. They had a large window which they could not get to open that gave a view of neighbouring brick from an adjacent building that blocked out most of the daylight. There was a door to the water closet, which was to say a toilet that had a showerhead over it that neither Napoleone or his roommate used if they could help it – both being lucky enough to have better options at their respective work places, and another to his bedroom, or rather there presumably had been before Raza had removed it during renovations.

Much as Napoleone liked having someone with whom he could converse when he could not sleep and got much out of such exchanges of intellect (‘ _What do you consider the Prophet’s greatest contribution as a lawmaker to have been?’- ‘Damn Nappy, how did you spend all eleven years of your playing career without encountering a single Muslim midfielder you could pester with this shit? Seems to be our main export to both Serie A and them Prem when not Italy and England as a whole.’- ‘It is not that I didn’t, but as you allude, these are all French players who don’t have the experience of culture to guide their understanding of history and religious text.’ – ‘It is a book. You read it. I think that is about it no matter where you at. But look, if I am going to indulge this at one thirty in the goddamned morning, can we first agree that you’ll cover my share of water and gas this month? – ‘Done.’ – ‘Okay, then I guess granting rights to women that exceeded any notion born from your revolution some 1200 years hence.’ – ‘It is fascinating that you would say that, because-’- ‘I promise you it’s not.’_ ) he rather wished Raza - whom he imagined at times he irritated with his questions in and of themselves irrespective of the hour in which he thought to raise them - had in fact gotten round to putting the door back on its hinges, horrified that Rose’s eyes might wander to the sum of his possessions and find them wanting.

‘ _Actually, this is Raza’s room, if you could call it that. Mine is over there, but it is not_ -’ She rose, leaving her Cleopatra costume on the floor where it had been discarded, taking the three steps into his quarters in all of her bare perfection. Napoleone, already feeling all too exposed, pulled his sweatpants back on before rushing after her, finding her eyes on his wardrobe filled with paperback classics rather than clothes, of which he only owned two shelves worth. ‘ _Such a school-boy_ ,’ Rose teased. He knew her to own most if not all of these works in the original hardcover, elegant and organised and all of that which he had initially admired about her person before having come to know her at all.

 _‘I think it is not the appearance, exactly, but rather the ideas contained that create a true beauty,_ ’ he stammered. She turned. Christ! What was he even on about? Did he intend that to be a metaphor? Did she catch it? _‘Napoleone_ ’ Rose said, bending her knees slightly that her eyes were level with his, continuing as though she thought him not to notice, ‘ _you_ are _beautiful_.’

She did not mean it.

She could not.

She meant that when they were together she could forget that he fell so short of every standard he had to assume she was accustom, and without knowing why he said as much, asking her if she was ashamed to be seen with him in public.

Rose sat on the edge of his twin mattress with a sigh. ‘ _It isn’t that … but it is exactly this. Can’t you understand? When left to your own substance you are amazing, you astound me and I daresay I adore the very man you try to conceal under this fully erroneous assumption that you are being asked to prove your own merit with every word that leaves your lips. If I could trust you to trust in yourself I would never permit you to leave my side, but the fact of the matter is my friends are snobs of the most horrid sort, they went to the best schools and never miss an opportunity for one-upmanship and the worst of it is that I don’t believe for a moment it is even conscious or intentional. Believe me when I say that you alone are at least twice so clever as the lot of them despite never having sat your baccalauréat because of your commitment to your family_ ,’ she shifted, ‘ _and how much more does it say for your character that you sacrificed your intellectual ambitions to put food on the table and put your siblings through the rigors you took it upon yourself to see that you’ve met even if you haven’t the qualifications to show for it? Is it not enough that thanks alone to your efforts Giuseppe was able to attend university abroad? That Luciano is likely to graduate early and at the top of his class? That your sisters all have scholarships to IND -’_

‘ _That is you doing_ -’ he could not help but to interrupt. Casual, unconscious snobbery, she said! He was already subject to the same, but in Rose’s example such did not manifest in malice and he instantly regretted the tone he had taken. Rose knew the headmistress of an elite girl’s school through family connections and he imagined her mentioning as though out of hand that his sisters merited scholarships, inclusive with room and board. His mother had gotten the call before Rose had bothered to inform him of the fight he was about to have to wage, perhaps hoping to hide her hand. Mama, naturally had not taken kindly to such charity though she was in little position to refuse it – three fewer mouths to feed meant that they would be able to pay off their debts that much sooner, his sister’s expectations and standards being raised meant that others were sure to be accrued. ‘ _Let’s hope this Tascher woman knows someone at Harvard,_ ’ his mother had spat. When he did get around to broaching the matter with her, Rose for her part could not fathom that she had overstepped, that she had made a promise in his name he could not hope to deliver, a promise to his family, but also to her. Napoleone wanted to create an opportunity - any! - that would enable his great love to buy her away from all that which processed her –

If only she were not fighting for the same on his behalf.

‘ _Do you think I would have done anything if I did not think you a worthwhile investment?_ ’ she retorted.

 _‘Do you think it doesn’t shame me that my family lacks the grace to thank you for your generosity?’_ he confessed without going so far as to say ‘because they can’t, because despite all of my best efforts they are not in an economic position to do so.’

_‘Do you think me bothered by something so trivial? You are better than the world you were born to, you inspire others to be by the example I wish you saw yourself to have set. Your players and teammates, your siblings, my kids,’ she listed, ‘I’ve spent half my life in Paris and have never met anyone with an allegiance to the local team, but now people are showing up to watch the B-side practice, to watch you. You show up here and everyone – everyone – who has been talking about judicial reform for ages is finally inspired to action and you are playing a role in that and I – I don’t pretend to know what it is that you see in me, but it doesn’t matter because having met you I see potential where previously existed naught but stagnation and dread. Maybe you are only using me for information you mean to pass on to your allies, but even if the faction to which you’ve tied yourself wins and I’m left in the end defenceless against the mob, I’ll die having known you, so I will have lived.’_

_‘My adorable friend, do you truly worry about such things? Rose, your friends, my backers – they share the same ends, don’t you see that? They simply don’t wish their perceived rivals to claim victory in obtaining them and for my part I could give a damn who does. I got lucky finding a lawyer who was able to win my case and keep me in a job, but that … that was the sum of my motivation until you told me you were afraid and now the only reason I’m in it is to get you out. Rose … run away with me.’_

Napoleone found an almost tragic irony in the fact that the means were just justified or even redeemed by their ends or anything else involved. From what he had been able to place together, the acting government bureaucracy was engaging in internal warfare as to which faction should gain from the implementation of a programme they had yet to obtain. It truly became farcical when one looked at the data which Napoleone had to imagine had been omitted from the final proposal – namely, the amateur football team on whom the method was alleged to have been originally tested were presently sixth in their table, nothing to be slighted in and of itself – these men were after all mere hobbyists - but with regard to a project that had cost the American taxpayer’s millions, certainly well below what they had paid for. As he thus saw it, it did not matter who came to obtain the research or how it was put into practice; the fact of the matter was, it simply had no measurable effect. Were that he could convince her to help him stop this before it escalated further and to no great cause! Were that he could prove a cause in his own person for Rose, at least, to let this be (for certainly their confidants would not) however convincing Napoleone knew the counterargument could prove if permitted in court. The problem was that everyone had too much to gain from perpetuating this myth -

Too much to gain, and far too much to lose.

 _‘Where to then?_ ’ she smiled sadly, wanting to imagine the notion without entertaining it.

‘ _Anywhere,_ ’ he nearly begged- ‘ _Let’s just leave, you and I and the kids, let’s just go and find our fortunes somewhere else as you’ve encouraged me to do, but let us do it together. You are so much better than any of this, too. Come to Turkey with me if it comes to pass. Be my queen, my sultana.’_

 _‘If I were the type of woman to shrink from a challenge, I would not be worthy of the love of a man like you and we both know as much,’_ she told him plainly.

 _‘Let me into your life if you won’t leave your ghosts to rest,’_ he returned _. ‘We could end this sooner if you truly let me be involved.’_

_‘Convince me that in doing so I would not be knowingly sacrificing everything that I love in you to your ideas of insufficiency.’_

Had he not yet shown the strength of his convictions? _‘I neither done nor said anything to -’_

_‘You give me credit and confess your own shame. You are embarrassed of this wonder you have built based on perceptions you ascribe to me despite every possible evidence to the contrary. You are generous with your tongue but tremble against my touch and I don’t understand you at times, but I’ve never met a heart such a mirror to my own. If only you could see yourself for all that you are instead of all that you are not, because you are brilliant, and you are beautiful. And you have nothing to prove. To me … you are everything. But why must you always play the hero?’_

_‘Because I have something that I believe is worth the fight,’_ he answered when he instead meant ‘why must you?’; when he instead meant ‘do you realise how limited the spoils of the war you are helping to wage have thus proven?’

She began to cry softly and let herself be held by him – held, he felt, but not comforted or consoled and he did not know what he had done or what he had not.

Another siren sped past and she asked him to spend the night. He lent her his coat and took the keys to her work-truck, feeling grateful for the trust she extended him. He did not want to leave her side so soon after causing her to tears.

Once in her apartment, in her embrace once more, all of the maleficence of the worlds in which they otherwise shared seemed to decimate – that was until around two in the morning, when after Rose had fallen into a peaceful slumber, his phone began to light up with the sort of notifications Napoleone assumed common to a metropolis on a Friday night:

Junot had found an after-hours party, the address of which he sent to everyone in his contacts over a status update.

Raza was convinced that he needed to get himself down to Gare de l'Est where a fight had just broken out between two custodial workers, followed shortly by a clip Napoleone did not bother to download and a description that read >> _Should we put money on this?_ << to which Napoleone replied >> _We should probably save up for a television if this is what has come to qualify entertainment for you._ <<

After this, a half hour of silence passed in which Napoleone nearly found rest, but then the onslaught truly set upon him:

Berthier sent him a link asking >> _Is this you? Is this real?_ << which he did not bother opening, assuming it to be another tired meme, much though in retrospection he might have questioned the source of this perceived slight.

Junot sent him a voice message, which Napoleone imagined in fact contained several voices from his locker room in a rowdy chorus were the week prior anything to judge against. He wrote back _> > Tell the lads training is at ten and the first team has a home match I expect everyone to attend tomorrow evening._<< without affording it a listen. A few more messages in kind followed from several numbers, some of which Napoleone did not have saved, all of which he felt could be dismissed until sunrise at least.

Lannes had sent along a video he had recorded of what seemed to be the same row Raza had written him on half an hour earlier, which, though quite dreary, he decided to indulge if only for the fact that his flatmate had this weird habit of waving at any recording device he happened to notice, but before he could spot any familiar faces in the gathered crowd, another text arrived, this one far removed from Paris (and frankly, any structure of expectation.)

Julie Clary, his brother’s finance (who did not think much of him to begin with and certainly not enough to engage in correspondence) sent a text reading only >> _You need to call me as soon as you wake up._ << She followed this up with the same link he had been sent earlier by the only bloke in the GA Division (and perhaps the game more generally) whom he was confident had a working grasp of SAP. Napoleone clicked on it, finding himself on the home page of an English-language newspaper and after quickly closing several advertisements for the app-version of the site, he found himself met with the darkest chapter of his past -

the one he had written in heartbreak and spite, the one he had forgotten he had posted online when he fancied himself a young Weather.

Napoleone glanced at Rose, asleep and honest in the way she held him, a light smile that led him to think she dreamt of him alone. Would she wake to feel as he once had went met with personal devastation?

Julie’s younger sister Désirée, whom Napoleone had begun courting long before Giuseppe ever laid eyes on the woman whom he was prepared to swear to love and cherish to the end of his days before a municipal bureaucrat who had come to replace God in such proceedings. Napoleone had asked Désirée the self-same question hours prior to his brother’s proposal and she had accepted him. Late to supper after they had both been somewhat unwilling to rise from the bed on which this promise had been consummated, the engagement remained a secret – Giuseppe and Julie had announced their own by the time they arrived.

Close though the sisters were, happy as he suspected Julie might well be at the prospect of a double wedding, Napoleone, who had known himself to overshadow his elder brother on many occasions, had not wanted to take anything from evening, which over its course strengthened his resolve to keep his own intentions muted until his brother had been celebrated properly.

Désirée had been understanding until he had been transferred, and for some time thereafter as well, but eventually her texts and calls began to grow increasingly infrequent, she missed Skype dates and in time stopped making excuses.

Napoleone bore his sorrows with his pen, composing a novella that read rather as he imagined a suicide note might in prose. Now, all of Britain had read it – worse, Désirée herself likely had, or likely would. He had never properly ended things though they had been over since he had first derived of the fictional fatal charge which he would rather have led than live with her betrayal.

He felt that he had somehow betrayed Rose in everything that pre-dated her. He had not told her of his engagement. He had not told anyone else either, to be fair, but that hardly changed the fact that the woman he had intended to offer his name to as soon as it was his to freely give had never once attempted to deceive him with regard to her own romantic past and present; he knew she was sleeping with, or rather, selling herself to the mayor; he knew she had been forced to marry too young to have experienced love and this struggled to see it as anything but transactional.

He knew, however, that she loved him as no one else ever had and that he loved her as he never would another for all of his days –

But this was hardly the beginning to any of the conversations he was prepared to have over his heart.

He saw Rose’s phone blinking on her nightstand and considered pre-empting the news if only to delay the inevitable, to take control of the narrative as much as he might after having written the worst of it when his own device began to ring.

Rose stirred and he ran his fingers through her short curls, encouraging her to return to rest.

>> _Hey. You good?_ <<

“Raza?” Napoleone found himself blink at the confusion replacing expectation. “I guess you saw it, too then. No,” he bemoaned, wondering how many people of course of an evening in which he was otherwise preoccupied, “I’m not ‘good’, I’m lost, I’m -”

>> _Look man, wherever you at, you need to get back here and take care of this shit_.<<

The open criticism caught him off-guard. Raza ordinarily shifted between passive and slightly patronizing. He spoke as though he respected women, of course, in a sense, Napoleone supposed, he needed to, specifically in the apologetic way men from the Arab way were made to argue their empathy in European languages an on European terms – which was also why he supposed he had never taken such sentiment seriously when presented with it in passing. As a statement it seemed rehearsed, hearing the same as something of an order caused Napoleone to question if his half-conscious dismissal was not a form of the same bigoted attitudes he wished to defeat –

Perhaps he was proving his own worst enemy on all fronts, though he was frankly shocked to find himself openly engaged. “I … I planned to. At Christmas,” he tried to defend. “I would call Désirée as soon as morning breaks to apologise, but I think this better done in person. I have to work later on today,” he thought aloud, “I mean, I’ll be at it non-stop until at least mid-week, there is a match on Tuesday in Lyon but that will conclude by eight in the evening, presuming the bus then leaves by ten – I know how ridiculous that sounds giving the realities of geography and circumstance but I can’t simply catch a train to Marseilles afterwards, it is literally in my contract and I don’t think my position secure enough at the club that I want to risk an argument or even an ask from Human Resources, and the only guy I get on with in General Administration is probably having a right laugh with you and everyone else right now … which is awful on its own merits because there are maybe five people in the world who can read my handwriting and only one who can turn my notes into spreadsheets, so -”

>> _Napoleone … the rug_ ,<< Raza said flatly, >> _Not the metaphoric one I swear you need pulled out from under you, but rather the completely misplaced piece of cultural appropriation on which I am currently standing – can we get rid of it?_ <<

The rug? He was worried about the rug? “This isn’t exactly a good time,” Napoleone squinted.

>> _There never really is, I guess, for these kinds of conversations which is why I suppose they never transpire, but look, I got to say my peace: culture isn’t homogenous, but it is fluid, and I’ve lived in too many places for you to be making all of these passive aggressive value statements about how you expect that I should be predicated or proud of this operatic image you seem to have of the Near and Middle East. It is like, I exist for you merely as an excuse for your agenda, to propagate the morals you want associated with you by my mere presence, but uh … when you go around with shit like ‘I have an-any-ethnically-based-adjective friend’ that is not okay even if that statement isn’t preceded by a bigoted comment and an ‘its okay’ that implies race gives reason. Kind of fucking awkward bringing this up cause I’m not Persian, and I’m not Arab which is what I imagine you prefer to think, but I don’t think I’d be any less French if I were, not that it should matter for shit._ <<

What had he done to warrant any of what met him this morning? He could no more fathom the extent Raza’s claims than he could much understand why the British press had decided to take him to task over something so ultimately trite. “What ‘operatic image’?” Napoleone demanded. “When have I ever referred to you in terms that you think yourself right in accusing me of reduction? That carpet … it is nothing to do with you, I promise, you were the furthest thing from my mind when first I saw it. I was not thinking about your God either and I definitely was not thinking of mine, but um,” he considered, realising he had yet another concern that might prove to press him, “we cannot part ways with it, offensive as you claim it to your eyes. To turn this around,” he tried, “can we say we have it because I’m ‘gaudy and Italian’? Or especially sentimental?”

>> _Or could we try to sell it on Ebay?_ << Raza countered. >> _You could buy yourself a fucking flight to Marseilles and go deal with your sentiments as you suggest to._ <<

He made a valid point.

“Were that things could prove so simple,” Napoleone lamented. “Impressed though I am by your sense of industrialism, the carpet was stolen from Theresa Tallien -”

>> _What the moderator?_ << Raza began to laugh. >> _How the fuck did you … you know what Boney, just when I think I want to be done with your ass you come out with shit like this._ <<

“It wasn’t my doing and its not a story that is entirely my own to tell, but out of a want to reduce the potential for collateral damage, will you just let this go for a few days? I can’t let the thing on the market without knowing if Madame Tallien wants it returned and/or laundered, and until I sort this thing I had going on for a while, I don’t want to call attention to the scene that played out on its fibres, though my palms and shins are certain to confess me.”

Raza was silent so long Napoleone well thought their discussion concluded.

>> _Did you have sex on this thing? What the actual fuck is wrong with white people? Come up in my house with some Julius Caesar sex dream shit like -_ <<

“So … it is okay when you do it?”

>> _My feet go here, man! Nah_.<<

“I meant actually the assertion that a fallacy such as race has any contention with regard to my behaviour or -” Napoleone began to challenge and correct. Raza, it seemed, had already moved on.

>> _You finally hit that posho chic you’ve been rollin’ with though? In_ this place? _Fuck man … I want high five you, and I probably will, but know that half my motivation in doing so is that I have to imagine that your hands are already raw._ <<

“We cool then?”

>> _I mean no, this is a much longer conversation that needs to be had, but to the immediate, how can we be ‘cool’? We have this tacky ass carpet in our living quarters with all of your memories of Joséphine embedded in its fibres_ -<<

“You can’t call her that.” 

>> _Do you though?_ << Raza laughed. Napoleone realised to his own mild shame that he preferred the man personally spineless.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. Raza, look, I’m waiting on a call from my agent and expecting several more that I want much less to receive.”

>> _Yeah, yeah – go fight the Russians or the Prussians or the Austrians or the -_ << Raza continued to jest.

“Yeah, it is the British this time,” Napoleone told him without a hint of irony.

>> _Isn’t it always though?_ <<

“So it would seem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should you ever find yourself in a multiple-choice type situation (pub trivia, a citizenship test …) and one of the answers to whatever is being asked is “because of Napoléon”... it is 100% the one you should pick. Full stop. Even if you happen to be going through the naturalisation process in the BRD when you are otherwise learning about 1848 at school and you _know_ the flag’s Schwartz/Rot/Gold was adapted from the makeshift uniforms of student rebels because such was printed up in a textbook distributed by the same government, on the citizenship test, the answer is Napoléon. It has been ten years and I’m still just …
> 
> Anyway. As this is the(long awaited) Notes Section, we should probably take this opportunity to add liberal Europe’s overblown approach of “inclusion” over integration in the specific example of the Middle East to the numbering system of streets and **those petit Reclam prints of all the classics in the school curriculum*** to the guy’s culture legacy. **Roustam Raza** was Napoléon’s Mamluk bodyguard he picked up in Egypt, whom back in France Napoléon costumed in the way he thought “Arabs” dressed, presumably having seen a production of Mozart’s _L'Enlèvement au sérail_ or some shit because we are talking turban, kaftan, harem pants - it was just a mess and a pretty gross one at that. There is this fun but also cringeworthy game you can play with art from the period, try finding him in one of those big group portraits, I heard this described once as Where's Wally for Napoleonic nerds. You can't miss him though, which I guess is the point. We are all meant to appreciate how woke the emperor was and as someone who has also been the token Turkish(/Arab/Kurdish/Israeli/… I also get mistaken for Latinx a lot somehow which is neither here nor there) friend, well … I am sure you can feel my eyes rolling. 
> 
> ... Raza’s definitely were as is evident in his adaptation of western culture after the Marshals’ Rebellion; he got married to a French girl, gave his kids French names and dressed in French fashion.
> 
> During his time with Napoléon though, the sleeping arrangement was much like it was adapted here, with Raza always on call as it were because by all accounts the Emperor wasn’t big on sleep and he wanted to have a lengthy conversation in the wee hours, well, guess what …
> 
> His replacement in this role (on Elba, St Helena) was **Louis-Étienne,** a Frenchman (the son of a cook from Versailles, that is where that comes from) whom Napoléon renamed Ali and imposed the same standards and restrictions on.
> 
> Obviously, as a Muslim immigrant who grew up in the shadow of this widespread confusion of what constitutes “cultural acceptance”, I find this particular bit of Napoleonic history deeply problematic (and in my defence, people at the time did as well, Raza included), but lest you get the impression that I can’t appreciate the Emperor viewing him through the lens I was given (as one does), let me also take this opportunity to make note of one of his more undeniably positive attributes that I wish more men today were as keen to emulate-
> 
> The bloke apparently loved going down on his wife (and he wrote about it. Extensively.) Side note on the same subject, the Bonapartes apparently were not strangers to public exhibition either, which I mean, if you are going to abuse your office to the complete discomfort of the subordinates sharing your carriage, this is really the way to go about it. Take note, lads.
> 
> And since we are talking about Napoléon (really, we always are if we realise it or not it seems) here is some biographical information of which you might not be aware – **around the time he and Joséphine met, he was applying to be a military attaché for artillery to the Ottoman Empire** , which is what the whole Fenerbaçhe thing was about. I’ve spent a fair few minutes considering the modern football implications had things played out along this historical what if and I’m kind of split over if even a man of the Emperor's tremendous talents could save the Canaries … and sporting wise I am kind of split. Erdoğan would probably buy into Boney's whole “worthy son of the Prophet" propaganda (he said this. Like he _actually_ said this. Let that sink in.) and get his friends to throw a whole shit ton of money behind the club (looking at you Basaksehir …) thereby also enabling Joséphine and Hippolyte Charles to get into a version of the profiteering in which they were periodically involved, but I am getting ahead of myself.   
> Anyway, there is a decent argument to be made that one can gauge Turkish politics by Super Lig results a la in mood in Brussels via Eurovision, but we are here to simply analyse the above, so lets get back to it.
> 
> More in the first comment.


	7. The Theory of Moral Sentiments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary comes to mistrust a number of comfortable assumptions. Kitty grows suspicious of Arthur's motives. Effie and Hanger talk shop. Rose solves a murder; Napoleone does not buy into the premise as presented. André finds an unlikely ally in an English commander.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, maybe you follow me via subscription and got really annoyed over the weekend when I posted two chapters of a 12th century bureaucratic operetta instead of updating this masterpiece, and yeah … my bad. I’ve had this chapter on my computer for well over a month, but I just haven’t been posting at all because ‘if a tree falls in the forest …’
> 
> Okay, I mean I probably owe you and explanation regarding the lack of activity here, but lets do some basic audiology instead because it occurs to me that ‘If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?’ is a dumb ass rhetorical. Sound is created by an impulse and spreads in waves in a pattern of compressions and reflections – so it is pushing and pulling air molecules back and forth as it travels through the medium and the laws of physics require no witness to occur unto themselves. With every doubling on the distance from the original impulse, the volume is reduced by 6dB and human hearing occurs in a range between 20Hz and 20kHz. I have no idea what that is in American. And that is a bad introduction to a chapter. So here we go.

“That is out of the question,” Philomena said sharply, not lightening her tone in the slightest when she moved to offer her feigned sympathies. “I’m sorry, Mary, but Robbie is a friend in spite of everything and I’ll not subject him to this series of inquiry.”

Mary Woodhull stood awkwardly in the diva’s dressing room, backstage of a Broadway show she had no interest or intention of staying to see, the bouquet she had brought lazily disagreed among countless others she knew her most famous acquaintance would donate to patients at a nearby hospital. For all her effort in selecting them to meet what she supposed was a certain expectation, the roses would probably be at the bedside of a sickly stranger before the curtain rose and Philomena played at being a Russian princess before an audience of elites. Mary wished she could remember if the starlet (whom, Mary sneered to herself, had gotten her start in New York playing a recovering drug addict at the halfway house Robert Rogers once ran, unable as she had then been to otherwise afford rent while running between auditions) was now staring in the musical about the end of the Romanov line or the one loosely centred around Napoléon’s invasion a century earlier. Mary wondered why the east suddenly held such appeal in the arts, and loosely suspected Vladimir Putin had a hand in this (as he reputedly had in selecting the leader of the Land of the Free.) Frowning, she tried to recall Philomena’s legal name – if she was a - _stein_ or a - _ski_ or a - _czky_ and if this in any way played into the evident hostility she held towards the American people whom Mary felt she was in essence asking her to help. Philomena turned from her and continued finishing her face for the stage, puckering her already too-red lips at the face in the mirror before applying another coat of paint. She looked like a whore, Mary thought. Perhaps the director was given to typecasting.

Philomena Cheer (as she was known on the stage, in society, everywhere, it seemed, save a court room) was a Jewish-American Princess who had grown up somewhere upstate she never spoke of and had little reason to visit, her parents having since moved to Florida where they no doubt pretended to be real New Yorkers (as Philomena herself did), her sister living in Tel Aviv which the man she had married (or rather been married to) at seventeen, pretending (as Philomena also did) to be fully secular unless the opportunity to end an argument with reference to which camp her grandparents had been in during the Holocaust presented (an increasingly common occurrence, it seemed, since Trump had taken office.) At some point between university and real life, Philomena had married an immigrant named John André for a sum of $10,000 and a better post-code; the then-young doctor had married her in turn to obtain a Green Card and, as Mary loosely recalled of the ego the pair shared if there had been little else to bind them, because he had some affiliation and affection for her surname. Christ! What was it?! Something to do with psychology, Mary reckoned, wondering if this assumption made her anti-Semitic on some level. Philomena Cheer … Philomena Freud? Was that it? It must be, Mary thought with reference to the two years of German her own ex-husband had taken in high school (something Abe occasionally lorded over his best friend in British Parliament whenever the latter called to complain about a Bundesliga result that had not gone his way, allowing her in turn to pick up bits of the language that remained in her children’s mouths after a weekend with Daddy _: Guten Tag, Butterkäse, Kloppoooo!, Schadenfreude_.)

Freud.

Philomena, who had never changed her legal name in the whole of her union to the man who had in such time come to undo the world order.

Philomena, who defended André’s killer, or at least the crime on its face.

Perhaps she did not want to consider the possibility that John André might still be alive for quite personal reasons, Mary considered. She had read somewhere that Philomena was planning on marrying again – another Englishman at that! - though her finances could not possibly be as dire as they had been when she and André met. Her name was lit up over half the city; school-aged children knew her voice as belonging to a Disney Princess and tried to imitate it whenever they found themselves loaded into the backseat of an SUV; grown men who would never otherwise admit to listening to Mary Robinson’s music spoke perversely about her having been cast to portray the artist in an upcoming biopic. Philomena was in short doing fine for herself, so perhaps, Mary considered, this woman who had once sold herself so cheaply had truly fallen in love and thus could not accept that a legal status that had long fallen from her consideration could jeopardise the joy she had since found.

Mary, who had been married when she met the love of her life, who technically still was and still would be until her February court date, whose ex, therefore, was the legal father of the children she had born since their separation as far as the State of New York was concerned, a status he selfishly would not surrender, a status that in turn kept their entire patchwork family both together and broken, could certainly empathise with Philomena’s motivations –

or _could have_ , that was, were rumours of John André’s continued existence not putting an added strain on her own relationship with a handsome Englishman, one that seemed to rapidly be slipping from her grasp.

Mary had hosted Thanksgiving the day before in a home her partner had long-since vacated out of a seemingly sudden sense of homage to a Scottish lord whom he otherwise seemed to hate every day but Sunday when a shared want to play soccer with a number of other slightly-out-of-shape middle aged men triumphed over any other conflict that might exist between them at any given time.

Edmund Hewlett was now in Edinburgh awaiting his coronation, and John Graves Simcoe had texted her upon his arrival in his sometimes-friend’s court that he planned on staying until ‘after Christmas, at least’ which Mary took as evidence that he planned to make the move permanent.

If John planned on telling her in so many words was another question altogether.

Since her ex had confronted him with his suspicions around the supposed-dead André’s whereabouts, communication between Mary and her current had all but broken down.

She knew he had been at his Godfather’s estate the night before, but only because Effie Gwillim had called to ask her (as delicately as one might whilst being quite so intrusive) about her experiences growing up in foster care. Apparently, John’s god-sister, former fiancé and former boss would soon be responsible for the upbringing of a teenage girl who herself suddenly possessed an odd political importance that Mary scarcely understood and did not want anyone in her odd, extended family to involve themselves in further _. ‘You single-handedly destroyed this girl’s household, made it so that she cannot see her father or extended family while her mother takes her last breaths, her entire sense of home and belonging has been uprooted because even her little friends are attempting to individually profit from her predicament, but oh, sure Effie, buy her a pony. I am sure that will make everything better,’_ she had answered her would-be but for papers not yet signed sister-in-law bluntly, fretting that John had gone south to make his own bid on the northern throne, fretting that André was still as much a part of their lives as he always had been, regardless if he was dictating security policy to Arnold as Abe had become convinced or if he was buried in an unmarked grave as Robert Rogers had insisted by banging his calloused hands covered in blood and dirt on some nameless constable’s desk two years prior. Would these wars never end?

 _‘By the way, tell John whatever his designs were in helping you in your scheme, his own daughters missed him on Thanksgiving. He could have at least called,’_ she spat over the other woman’s pleas to hold on, she could collect John from her dear uncle’s study if the girls were still up –

it had been three in the afternoon. Had the Graves’ even realised that John had not brought them the Britain? What other lies had he told? What other truths had he elected to omit – and to what end?

Mary felt she might forever remain in the dark, regardless of the fires she lit.

John had not bothered himself to call or text since, which she found predictable, however poor in taste. What truly chilled her, however, was that she was not alone in isolation. Anna, too, was suffering similar problems in her marriage, though these she explained away through the strongly worded political rhetoric she always fell back on when real life failed to conform to her liking. Akinbode, who had also been a subject in the trial had not left his office since hearing the rumours, which seemed unfortunate, as Cicero likely needed a father now more than ever following his small excursion into espionage that had seen another of his female friends sexually mistreated at the hands of a man in power, causing him to recede to the anger he had been consumed with in the months following the rape he had witnessed.

Was this a time for men to flee the field of battel? – Mary wondered - when their wives and children needed them to stand?

She did not know how the others from the team were doing with the news, but she suspected them to have succumb to the same cold apathy. Wakefield, Joyce, and Byrd had all cancelled on her invitation last minute. Philomena had never answered the phone to accept, and Rogers, it seemed, was likewise reclusive – which simply would not do. Mary need information and furthermore, she simply had far too many leftovers which she needed to unload before these could expire for the Scot to possibly refuse her visit on Sunday.

She had tried calling the prison, requesting that her name be added to the three on his visitation list, but Rogers had refused. If she had his son’s number, she might have done better to go that route, though she had never met the man and had no reason to believe he had any interest in reconnecting with his father after decades of estrangement. The other name on the list of company the Scot was willing to endure was that of her colleague Jordan Akinbode, whom Mary at present did not trust at present to approach the situation in any fashion that would lead to the furtherance of information –

\- that, and she did not want Abigail, who was already in an impossible situation with her only child, to contend another crime - one, in this case, that possibly had not been committed.

Philomena was the best of all of the bad options Mary could find, but the acclaimed actress was not playing along in this scheme. She would settle to have the woman deliver a message on her behalf.

“Philomena,” Mary tried anew, “pretending for a minute that what my ex-husband believes holds any merit, we could get Rogers’ sentence reduced by _decades_ , he could move the Alaska like he always wanted -”

“Robbie is doing better behind bars than he ever would on the outside,” Philomena dismissed. “You know that. I know that. I’m _damn sure_ he does as well, being that he walked into a police station and confessed to Murder in the First.”

“He confessed to killing your husband who you must have held in at least _some_ affection,” Mary stammered in frustration, “why are you protecting him … unless ... Philomena, is my proposed trip even necessary? Did you and Rogers work something out between yourselves with regard to your husband’s fate?”

“It was a Green Card marriage,” Philomena spat, still making eye contact with the woman in the mirror who might once have resembled her rather than giving Mary the benefit of a glance. “Please stop you attempts to appeal to sympathies you know me never to have held. And ‘ _work something out’_? What pray tell do you seek to accuse me of? When would we two have even had a chance to so much as talk between Robert’s arrest, hospitalisation, and subsequent disappearance? I was in holding myself at the time, or don’t you remember?”

“I know, I know … I just – maybe you from a concern for his wellbeing -physical, psychological or otherwise - begged him to spare John André, maybe you incentivised him with a supply chain -”

“I don’t visit Robbie upstate each week to supply him with drugs or alcohol or electronics or any other kind of contraband substance,” Philomena sneered, “there are gangs that have those markets cornered – ones I might equally accuse you of having more of a connection to than I could ever claim. When I say he is ‘doing well inside’ I mean that he is still clean, nothing more. And why would I jeopardise that? As I said, we are friends. We have been for decades. Though I’m not sure that appeal works to either your conscious or comprehension. I thought we were friends, too, Mary, but clearly -”

“We _are_ friends,” Mary stressed, “which is why I want to help get to the bottom of what really happened the day the news of André’s death broke.”

“What does it matter?”

“What does it matter?” Mary repeated, astounded at the question and the fact it was raised. “Philomena, it is not just André’s life at stake, it never was. We have cause to believe that his research has been implemented in the armed forces. Just look at the increases in crime and incarceration in the past few years. Rogers is at greater risk now than he was when he was sentenced.”

“Aren’t we all?” Philomena countered. “Can’t you take your argument in its entirety and spin it around partisan gerrymandering to the same effect?”

“I -”

“I … aye,” Philomena repeated before Mary could formulate a counter argument. “You know what I said when John André was conveniently laden with responsibility for all that transpired around Arnold’s disappearance and abduction?” she asked as she turned around to face her (whilst wearing another’s face), continuing in a drama made for stage, “There is nothing about crime and punishment in the modern legal system. It is quite the opposite: they decide to punish you, then they decide on the crime. I feel for André. You are right. Naturally, I feel for him, he was a friend, too, after all. I won’t claim he did nothing wrong, but certainly he did nothing worse than you or Simcoe or the Hewletts or the bloody investigating officer Ben Tallmadge – but you are all better off for your roles in this conspiracy and André’s name is repeatedly unburied by conspiracy theorists for no reason beyond the frustration over how under-prosecuted the crime or series thereof actually was.”

“You think that we deserve -”

“What concern do you have for _my_ thoughts, Mary?” the actress bit. She stood, took the bouquet from its place at the top of her pile and shoved it back into Mary’s grasp, the roses’ thrones threatening to pierce from beneath their bows and packing paper. “The fact is that America is more stable than it would be had Arnold never disappeared. In that light I can’t understand why you or Tallmadge or your husband or anyone else for that matter has cause to raise the dead. What motivation could I have for helping you to do so?” she demanded. “We both know my husband would never be given a fair trial if he were found to be alive. I get your anger and frustration and everything else – believe me, I do, enough people share it, but I have to ask if it is not a little bit misplaced, especially in your instance. Alive or not, André lost his life, his life’s work, his identity, and everything else he fought to build, is that not enough – and if not, what possibly could be? The only people who faced prosecution for this were John Robeson and Robert Rogers – both living in a half-way house at the time of the incident. Whatever you think you know, whatever that has emerged to give you this sudden sense of self-righteous urgency, it just seems to me that you are trying to transfer a crime you committed to the poor to wash your pretty hands of sin. But you can leave me out of all that. And … and you can leave.”

“Philomena, please just listen -”

“Goodbye, Mary,” the diva insisted, opening her dressing room door to invite the solitude she sought with a chorus of a song chillingly echoed in the amusement of passers-by. “There is a war going on, out there somewhere, and André isn’t here.”

**OOO**

He had done a bit to tidy up, which Kitty supposed was, well … _necessary_ on its face, though it hardly did much to render Arthur Wellesley endearing. If anything, it added a certain estrangement to the confusion of their present engagement. In the four hours it took for her to drive back from Devon (and for him in turn to run two loads of laundry without seeming to have colour-sorted, wipe down the counters with a bit too much vinegar-based cleaning solution – no doubt fighting all the while between asphyxiation and a winter chill he had invited in remedy - and sweep the whole of the downstairs without managing to bring the collected dust into the bin adjacent) her ex had come to settle into the rest of what he likely qualified as a domestic routine, cumulated by his kissing her cheek when she walked through the door to a townhouse that was not so much clean as it was damp and cold.

Kitty ignored the gesture, and rather blessedly her guest had not attempted to apologise or explain what she hoped had simply been an extension of old habit, but despite her want to give Arthur the benefit of doubt in kind, he had worn an expression ever since the greeting that seemed at once judgemental and dejected. He had tidied the table in the kitchen nook from the course work that ordinarily littered it (Kitty having shortly after the start of term converted the ‘desk’ in her room into a vanity which even the far more-fashionable ladies whose company she had just left would have envied) replacing her papers with those he had come upon illicitly, replacing the water bottle she had been given with a gym membership (which she had only twice made use of in the past month since joining) with a four-quid bottle of port, two wine glasses, and a bowl of salt-and-vinegar crisps that did their bit of disguising the cheap libation from its overwhelming sweetness. What on earth was he hoping to achieve with all of this -dare she say - _effort_?

Either Arthur thought her a slob, Kitty considered as her eyes skimmed another identical statement, or he had (in his man's approximation of cleaning) found a pair of kickers he recognised and was half-wondering if he would also know the pair she presently wore -

He was likely disappointed that she had not offered him up such a discovery earlier in the day, Kitty thought in passing, at least the presence of phantasy might explain why he had left so much housework unfinished.

Their hands brushed as she set aside several pages of transcript, an accident he took as an invitation to lean in. Kitty straightened her posture abruptly. Arthur did not seem conscious of the shift.

“And?” he asked – in reference to what precisely Kitty had trouble to place, overpowered as she felt by the rest of it. After nearly two years in the armed force, Arthur Wellesley was no longer the same lanky, pale, slightly unkempt boy with a spotted brow and voice that continued to crack long after the other lads had gotten the better of puberty. His complexion had since evened out - still slightly tanned from the sun of the subcontinent at that - and service had perpetuated the effects which she had noted boot camp had begun on his physique when last they met. He was tall, broad-shouldered, terribly fit and terribly conscious of it, however casual he hoped to present. The room was still chilled from the evening air despite the fire Kitty had lit, yet he had removed his pullover to reveal a tee that had grown tight through what seemed endless weights-room repetition. Kitty wanted to roll her eyes at this desperate plea for attention and approval and _would_ have but for the fact that it was proving rather difficult to pry these same eyes from the man, even to the satisfaction of her own pride.

It was cold in the room, especially here in this windowed nook. Kitty, who could have easily gone upstairs to retrieve a cardigan of shall, sat in her short, thin, figure-revealing crushed back velvet twirling the glass of dark wine that had been poured for her, conscious that the temperature had caused her nipples to harden, conscious that her ex had likewise taken note, and increasingly certain that all of this was equally intentional on her part. She wanted him in the flesh nearly as much as she wanted to be the subject of his unrealised desires.

She did not, however, want to contend with the inevitable consequences and complications of spending another night naked in his arms.

“And … I think the truth has a rather unfortunate habit of altering,” she attempted of his vague proposition, “not, mind, of being altered by external forces and factors or to suit a certain agenda but genuinely _changing_ as time passes.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur puzzled.

“You are _clearly_ -and for reasons I still don’t understand, I might add,” she lied, hoping him to take the hint at reasonably deniability she laid open, “occupied at present by something existing in a past that has nothing to do with you, yet you still must have spent the whole of the evening with an eye on your mobile waiting for my text. I don’t know how much expectation I should read into that, but I know if I were to kiss you now, I would have a much better idea come morning.

“I need a win of any sort after all I witnessed in Edinburgh,” she explained, almost pleading much as she might have liked to retain her rehearsed air of confidence, “and I’d settle for it in the form of having you take me hard and fast over the back of the couch.” At this, Arthur’s eye’s widened and Kitty felt self-conscious over the extent to which she had stated the plain truth, “but, it isn’t the sex in and of itself … or at least would not be the way if we let this play out,” she tried to adjust. “I need something that lets me feel that I am doing _anything_ to actively engage this life on my terms and I know you do as well. You fucked things right up in Spain and in all of England’s former colonies on which you have ever set foot; I, well _we_ both fucked over our mutual friends here on the home front for reasons of politics in which neither of us have any business or part.

“I fell awful, Atty,” Kitty confessed before her ex might offer a contradiction that would serve his defence or shield her from her own (well-earned) critique, “I’m petrified and yet somehow simultaneous empowered - so much so that if you keep looking at me that way I might well initiate the act, but come morning I would recognise that you took advantage of the emotionally vulnerable state I am in, as I would be doing to you, no doubt, but time has a way of dictating the way the story gets repeated in our psyches, and I don’t want to risk waking to see either of us in that light.

“I’m not a victim any more than you are or ever would be an aggressor – it is just, right now I want to be able to say ‘oh, poor me,’ because I assume that would alleviate some of the guilt I feel over tempting another middle-class upstart to regency at the possible expense of a friend’s personal safety and security; and bad as it sounds if I am forced to give words to it, you want to prove your valour after having fled battle, and if that isn’t obtainable, you want the self-scorn that you have since allowed to manifest within your heart to materialise in anyone else and by any cause.”

“Or I love you still, and despite all of the many faults you are so quick to accuse me of, I know you love me, too,” he claimed, as he reached for her hand, intertwining his fingers in hers. His nails were clipped too short, she noted, filed down as though he intended himself injury, tiny cuts that had since scabbed likely wincing once more with the salt-and-vinegar stick of the crisps he knew she favoured. She wondered if he still chewed at them unconsciously while trying to solve something simple which his mind managed to render complex; if the over-preening was an effort to end such behaviour or its direct result. Kitty wanted to let go. She found she could not.

“How can you _love_ me?” she asked. “How can you pretend to yourself that you do and how dare you burden me with such a lie after all we once shared? You don’t _know_ me, Atty. I don’t know what you ever have. Don’t you get it? You don’t even know yourself at present and what frightens me most is that you seem so … focused on the possibility of finding an alternative to just that.”

“To finding myself?” he blinked. “Kitty, I’m not half as privileged as your friends from uni -”

“Yeah, but you are though, what with your obsession with this research and how it was employed. What does it concern you? Maybe you should take a few months off to go to the continent, drink wine in warmer climates, take up smoking and discover that you don’t quite like painting or poetry quite so much after all after a few months.”

“I don’t have a particular fondness for either,” he blinked. “Can you please be serious-”

“Well if would be better if you did, that is, it would be better than pursuing your current designs to poison your own mind with this rubbish,” she snorted, not releasing his hand as he moved to untangle his fingers from hers. “Sacrificing your character and consciousness is its own form of suicide -”

“Kitty, if you had been there, maybe you would understand that I have few other options. I’m not like them, I’m just not,” he admitted, his pitch and pace of speech raised as he began to chastise himself. “I’m not like the Americans who treat every order as a matter of death of glory and now that I have been given this command -”

“No, Atty. You are not like them. You have your own mind, a heart, a strong sense of what is right and the courage to object to something when it isn’t,” Kitty agreed. “Why can’t you just keep being brave as you’ve been?” She knew the post to which he had been assigned terrified him. It terrified her as well, it terrified her to the point that she had condemned Marie to Effie Gwillim’s golden cage in hopes of helping to shift the scope of the conflict in order to keep him safe. Perhaps she had failed to see that Arthur had himself become far more of a threat to his own person than any of the rival factions out for courtesy titles and tax exemptions.

“Brave?” he gaped, “Brave? Kitty, if anything I’ve proven that I’m not fit for the uniform I wear, and I can’t see another way to make amends for the lives lost under my previous failures, especially now that I’ve been entrusted with a command that will set me against opponents whom I trust to already be employing the methodology here expressed -”

“How dare you,” Kitty shifted. “You are conscious on my station, of my stock. Would you call the Pakenham men who have given their lives to and for Queen and Country _cowards_ , Captain Wellesley?” she sneered, abandoning his injured hands as she brought he own into a fist which she raised to her chest. “Sometimes strength is leading a charge, but sometimes, mostly, I dare to say,” she reflected over that which her relatives were reluctant to give words to, “it is simply forcing one’s self to stand up out of bed once a battle has been fought, when you wake up to realise anew that all of your friends and comrades are ghosts – you keep going. Brave men press on, they don’t surrender themselves to folly and they _certainly_ don’t willingly court it.”

“And if recent events have confessed _me_ to be a coward?” Arthur asked helplessly.

“You are creating a context for what is being presented and coming to conclusions based on assumptions that remove you from responsibility. It is what we all do when we are confused and confounded, regardless of substance. You say that you think the American armed forces are employing these methods because your conversation with a retired colonel doesn’t reflect anything of the reception you thought yourself to have received on the front lines when on trial for insubordination. They saw you as an unreliable ally because they did not achieve their objectives due to bad intelligence or whatever and sought to blame you for putting saving and sparing lives over escalating tensions in that incident. Our military backing your actions says nothing of us lacking a backbone, or holding different morals or standards - half my family is in the force, they would be fucking pissed if an allied unit failed to advance, as the Americans were with you. All the same, I doubt any of your critics would have made a different decision if challenged with you command.

“Sir Banastre who was on both sides of this kind of thing was trying to tell you as much, that is how I read it. But he also hasn’t seen active combat in nearly a decade and you just came out of a war zone so he had no way of relating in a way that had even the slightest chance of truly resonating, and I am sure that he knew as much, but you are friends with his daughter - or were until you fucked them all over by giving their lust for power not only a name but a proper noble title - but war is war and don’t you get it? You don’t need research to warrant the implication of such methods, it justification that you want to save you from the fault of decision, but the mind does that anyway. There is nothing decisive in any of these stolen statements,” she gestured, “André just recognised the human capacity to disassociate and made it easier by giving people something to blame, for we fear critique more than anything else.” 

“You are the one disassociating, Kitty.”

“You can’t win if you become that which you are fighting.”

“And you think you know what that is, do you?” he demanded.

Was he already quite so far gone from the boy she knew that he would not listen to reason?

“Arthur – these people, these people,” she heaved as her hands began to shake. He pulled her into a tight embrace, and she let herself collapse into it, crying into his shoulder as he rubbed her back gently, bidding her for the burden of the secrets she kept.

“Kitty, what exactly happened?” he whispered softly as she shook.

“I can’t, Atty, I can’t. I overheard something which, were I to share it would only increase the danger you are already in through association. But how … how could you look at the men in this test group knowing what their lives have become, knowing the crimes they committed, seeing the state to which America has since been wrought and decide that this is what is best for Britain, for you?” 

“Because it would be better for everyone if the war were quick and decisive,” he answered with far too much resolve for her liking.

“In what sense would anyone benefit from yet more bloodshed?” she countered. “The Duke of Richmond took his life to punish those responsible for his brother’s death – all of the factions now fighting for power, for the right to define what form that takes as though there were any practical difference to philosophical disputes. None of them are strong enough to claim victory if this should come to blows – you well might be, but to whose benefit? If a war breaks out, even one small, quick and decisive, all of the personal liberties we have come to take for granted will be denied to us, and not just us – you think our former allies on the continent are not champing at the bit, waiting for a stray bullet to warrant their own increasing tendencies towards martial law? Don’t be the one to load the gun and cock it! Be a diplomat” she begged him, “be an adult. Stand to your actions and in doing so stand up for what is right.”

For a moment, he seemed to truly consider the council he had asked of her. “We both know there is a huge difference between what is right and what is workable,” he concluded. Kitty felt her heart shatter and splinter. She again lent over into his embrace, hating herself in the action nearly as much as she hated him in his respiration of it, knowing the sentiment to be mutual as their lips met, considering that maybe all love was ultimately only a vague sense of something being shared by two people with nothing else left to connect them -

It hardly seemed enough to end a war or alter its course.

“We are proof of that, aren’t we?” she asked.

“How can I prove you wrong?” he pleaded as he slowly unzipped her dress.

“On what count?” she asked, unwittingly to fight him when they shared the same impulse, when that was all that love was or could ever be were it to exist between them. Perhaps her case for peace would sound stronger when she was naked and he was spent.

“How can I convince you that my intentions are good?”

“That is just the thing, Atty. All intentions are.”

**OOO**

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Effie Gwillim asked in answering the call that had interrupted her in the task of saddling her horse for a morning ride.

Effie knew the number. She knew, therefore, what the call would be about, and she certainly did not want to have a conversation about Clisson (or worse _Calcio_ ), nor did she truly have the time to do so despite a void of commitments in the immediate.

The sun had not yet risen, and though she had hardly slept, Effie had gotten up with a sense of energy and urgency – a nervous feeling that she struggled to fully place.

John would be leaving that morning, but not as the man she had greeted a day prior, of the boy she had grown up with and had once loved. He had abandoned his family for a purpose that seemed noble, certainly, until one considered the underlying causes – and it was of these that Effie wished the cool morning air, heavy in and wet with condensation to clear her troubled mind.

Something had shifted in John of late.

It was not enough for him to be simply happy with all he had, for this seemed nothing in the absence of total victory over an idea she had not fancied had so much as crossed his mind. Edmund Hewlett had bid his help in a coup to free Scotland of its long strive towards independence, to save his wife from starting a war he knew would be lost. Effie suspected there to be more to this narrative than John had elected to make her privy, but she would hazard the guess that nothing of what she was missing would change her mind on matters in the slightest –

for he had abandoned Mary as he had her.

If he did not care for his own personal cost, how could she trust that he cared for the public she and so many others were relying on him to protect?

>> _Don’t play with me in such fashion. I know you are up_ ,<< George Hanger said from across the line, from somewhere across the channel. >> _You just posted a literary assessment of sorts bound to prove controversial, and true to character, rather than pouring yourself a shot a bourbon and lighting a fag like any other self-respecting member of this industry, you are probably out in the stables, saddling up for a victory lap, from the sounds of it, or have you finally taken a lover?_ << her colleague mocked, >> _If so than I certainly apologise for the interruption, but I am in need of an editor and your review suggests you are at least semi-conscious of the predicament in which we have all been placed by the brothers Buonaparte._ <<

Effie pulled a sugar cube from her pocket in order to quite the beast who seemed that share her mood. She had never quite found it within her to extend Hanger much affection, for he epitomised so much of all that she despised of the industry. He was old school in his casual sexism, maintaining that she only found herself in her position due to family ties, forcing her to make this same argument by his informal way with address which she could not condone. If she was not one of the lads, Hanger argued by demonstration, she was of no more worth than the women they bought for a night, women, surely, who for their part ought to set their price far higher.

The worst of it was, she and George Hanger were both products of the same world, however much he was loath to acknowledge his attitudes as extensions of privilege. He had a title he did not claim (suspecting that in doing so he would have to put on a pair of trousers and speak of things of little personal interest) though he certainly felt entitled to spend through his inherited assets, enjoying the company that such allowed. He was still personal friends with the likes of Ban Tarleton, Francis Rawdon, and her own dear John – though none of these individuals were of speaking terms with one another. Hanger’s arrogance shielded him from personal responsibility, form taking a side or making a stand -

But Effie Gwillim knew well enough how to put chauvinists and cowards in their place. She ran a newspaper; in essence, she ran the nation.

“What have you got for me, George?” she asked casually, releasing her horse’s reins, and letting it gallop about the pasture, climbing herself instead onto a fence post from where she could watch him run. “What is so important that you have managed to drag yourself from whichever brothel you spent the night to whichever Turkish-owned kiosk has both my paper and your brand of fags in stock?”

>> _That is specific_ ,<< Hanger murmured.

“I know Hamburg. I also just heard someone shout ‘kıçını sikmek’ in the background so I take it that it is safe to assume you are already arguing about sport? Do us a favour George and resit the impulse to play so much to type? It so tends to bore.”

>> _Only because you are not my target audience._ _Ay! Vedo, du bist ja glücklich, mich zu sehen, oder?_ << Hanger called out. Effie rolled her eyes and felt fairly certain that this Vedo, whomever he might be, wore the same expression.

>> _Immer,_ << she heard the man answer in a tone that suggested what he really mean to say was ‘kıçını sikmek’, or ‘fick dich’, or (in English) ‘get fucked.’

>> _I enjoy a good rapport here - in Lübeck, by the way, not Hamburg a few miles south. I’m now officially old enough to want to avoid whenever the Millentor-Stadion cuts their beer prices by the half_ ,<< Hanger claimed (Effie suspecting that he had instead gone off in search of a harder drink and other more illicit substances than mere alcohol), >> _and as it works out, I’m doing a bit of follow up on the story I’ve been rather forced to bring to press, the reason I passed on the one you seem to have found yourself in possession of._

>> _You see, Vedat here holds a record for bookings in the local association football league and has for several seasons. I came here to interview him in hopes of making an argument I don’t otherwise subscribe to any more, but all has been for nought being that you seem set on making enemies of the very people I am attempting to appease in taking on such an assignment_.<<

“The charming company you keep,” Effie drolled, “No, do you want to tell us what the devil you are on about or are you going to make me guess?”

>> _It is the company we keep collectively, dear Effie, that raises my concern. Now, tell us where you got the story and explain your interpretation._ <<

“You have a degree in journalism, and for what little it is worth, I know you to be well read. I don’t know where I am accused of being vague -”

>> _Except that sarcasm is surely waited on your readership:_ ‘As with Thomas Mann’s _Lotte_ , _Clisson_ reads as a counterargument to Goethe’s early work much though it seems a homage.’ _First off, do you think anyone in your demographic appreciates even the reference -_ <<

“You woke up in the wrong city, didn’t you? How am I otherwise to be faulted for trying to widen the cultural scope of Britain’s most base?”

>> _I don’t know that I’ve ever been happy to find myself in Schleswig-Holstein, but to that end, I’m standing in the drizzle outside of this newsstand where everyone in my surround is debating the literary merits of a man who very much means to bring us all down_.<<

“Thomas Mann? Did the city just suddenly wake up to the fact that its most lauded son wasn’t exactly a fan?”

>> _Napoleone Buonaparte. Stop playing coy. What motivation could you possibly have had to afford him anything of the ink in your printers?_ <<

“Ooh,” Effie mocked. “Sex sells, baby.”

>> _Effie, who was your source on this?_ << Hanger again demanded.

“Why is it of any significance?” Effie countered, her curiosity piquing ever so slightly. She wonder if Marie Robinson had extended him the same offer, if he was angry that she had been the first to act, if he was planning to return to take her to court in a custody battle and if he truly believed such was in the child’s best interest.

>> _Because Napoleone and his brothers Giuseppe and Luciano believe that the research conducted on the club Simcoe and Hewlett were playing for during the same period to have been ineffectual,_ << Hanger explained reluctantly. The answer found her off guard.

“Ineffectual?”

>> _As in having had no measurable effect on the outcome of an individual match. Luciano thinks there is additional evidence that the same methods were in fact employed in the military, Napoleone that this will be exposed in and perhaps resulting from the expected government shut down, and Giuseppe – who here has the benefit of having read Diplomacy and International law in Pisa - that rather than admit fault, the Pentagon will make an argument in defence of the programme, to shield them from answering for, or as perhaps grounds to commit further war crimes before the programme eventually gets shut down. The bothers make a very valid point and they are gathering a highly influential audience between them. I don’t need to expand on the implications, I’m sure – but I need you to help me write this up in a way that neither misleads the public nor opens our mates to consequence. So, are you in?_ <<

“What evidence do they have exactly?” Effie inquired.

>> _Who was your source?_ << Hanger demanded.

How could he open the suggestion that John was in any way responsible for his actions only to continue in this same line of questioning? “Her name is Catherine Pakenham, though she goes by Kitty,” Effie answered with a sigh. “She got the story from our shared goddaughter who wanted to see it printed that she might use such as leverage with a French agent who has designs on this same Napoleone’s contact and evidently more experience in the Ivy League recruitment system than any of William’s associates. It was a presented as a peace offering of sorts, I don’t see where you take such issue. It is a love story, George -”

>> _Are you that stupid? A peace offering? It was declaration of war. I posted that link to something Luciano showed on Wattpad up on the way to Paris to conduct an interview with his almost-famous brother to my lads’ group never,_ never _thinking it would find your eyes but it seems that I, too, was holding on to too much optimism, too much of ‘for old time’s sake’ to acknowledge that if the old times ever existed in the way memory advises they have long ceased to. You just … you put this to print without any research or consideration,_ << he critiqued. >> _Kitty Pakenham? I just threw a Google on her. First result: Facebook – relationship status “its complicated with Arthur Wellesley” – Arthur Wellesley as in the guy who has been given command in the boarder region, the kid Westminster is sending there to presumably fail in his assigned task of holding the peace._

>> _I’m sure Ban had something to do with that assignment, same as I am sure he told his favourite daughter to give you the suggestion of an overture by way of putting this piece of fiction in your hands, thereby keeping this Napoleone Buonaparte front page news until the real news breaks. There is no way the Tarletons did not know about this accusation before I had gotten word of it – be it from a Red Box, from the fact that - likely motivated at least in part by a want to retaliate against a prosecutor electing to pursue a lesser charge against a Hewlett ally in the FFL - fucking Joseph Fouché went out of his way to assist Ferguson’s replacement at Police Scotland to reopen the original inquiry into the alleged death of Edmund Sr, from the fact that Wellesley, yeah that one - Kitty’s ‘its complicated’ asked Clayton to obtain Ban’s statement from an interview Fouché himself conducted regarding insider trading claims of which John and Edmund stood accused, or just from the simple fact that all of this is_ so much _in the realm of public knowledge that it was what the siblings Tavşan were debating with their regular clientele of retirees on my arrival, and this_ ,<< he said louder and for show, >> _despite AC Milan’s 5-4 win against Juve last night and the fact that they all owe me money_.<<

>> _I won’t charge you for the coffee_ ,<< she heard a girl respond to his theatrics in accented English.

>> _Ich habe bereits bezahlt?_ << Hanger complained.

>> _Eben_ ,<< the girl’s voice answered. Effie could not supress a small snort. “Don’t worry, George, that just means you will be able to write it off as an expense,” she said.

>> _Unglaublich! Look, Effie, I know you are working through some shit and maybe it is a huge ask right now to expect you to be as well informed about events around Europe as a family chain of kiosks whose owners are about as corrupt as the politicians they talk about all day,_ << he slighted, >> _but think about it for a moment: God knows I love Marie and have the highest respect for her capabilities, but do you really think she doesn’t have William guiding her hand in all of the negotiations she has been credited in creating? For Christ’s sake, she is sixteen. She didn’t trick the transfer market into overextending itself to the point that anti-corruption had to get involved over a series of deals that were never on the table to begin with. That was her uncle, her uncles in the plural, perhaps, perhaps we might even extend this further to all of their Merseyside acolytes and associate partners who have a direct fiscal interest in seeing the Tarletons’ relative market hegemony maintained._

 _> >This guy Talleyrand in Paris, the one rumoured to have seduced Marie, trust me he is not that stupid. He was an expert witness on the committee that elected to acquit Simcoe and Hewlett of the crime we both know they committed against free market and now he has likely calculated that he can profit yet more from their fall. I’m sure he told Marie in the course of whatever dalliance they are alleged to have engaged all about the allegations that the research that saved her rivals from prosecution is about to be disproved. I know from my trip to Paris that this same guy has been advising Fouché, the police director who was once asked if he would bring back the guillotine and answered that a bullet would get the job done just as effectively and with half the mess. And this is a mess, Effie. If there is even a suggest that Simcoe and Hewlett acted of their own accord, that is Richmond gone to them, and to you, who move to take it over in some fiction you’ve invented of wanting to protect a kid whose castles you put under siege before they could even be built. And we all know the transfer of power won’t be peaceful._ <<

“So what are you suggesting that we do?”

>> _I’m revisiting the original article I wrote on the matter. I need to make the case of plausible deniability for a lot of individual parties I now believe to be guilty of a series of heinous crimes, and I need you to advise me on how to influence public opinion to that extent. I also … I need to return to New York and I kind of need you to front the bill._ <<

Perhaps, Effie fretted, Hanger had always been right about her. Perhaps he was a better journalist. Perhaps she had let her emotions get the better of her. “Then I need your word that you can make a deadline for once,” she threatened. She watched her horse gallop as the sun began to rise from behind the hills and decided to forgo her morning ride. She needed advice on how to further proceed, but her recent work had left her without an impartial source on whom she could rely.

**OOO**

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said though it hardly sounded like an apology as he expanded, “I’d not have answered except I’d thought it would be my agent.”

“Any reason why?” she inquired, half-suspecting in his phrasing that their first night was fated to be their last. It was for the best, she tried to tell herself, seeing in Napoleone’s sad grey eyes that she might well be soon tasked with convincing him of the same. He had to leave Paris loath though she felt to let him go. In truth, her allies were no better than the ones he had found, and Rose could protect him from neither faction. He had to go. He should never have come.

“Besides the hour?” he swallowed. “Rose, my darling … there is no comfortable way for me to address the matter, especially in light of our love at last actualised and the perplexing predicament in which circumstance has us found – truth, as we have come to confess it has relied on a series of lies to further its facilitation, lies not so much spoken as perpetuated by omission with the ambition of becoming themselves true in the sanctity of silence.”

So, it was exactly as she had suspected, even once hoped.

She nodded slowly. She knew the line she was meant to say. “As a rule,” she cautioned, “I generally need coffee before hyperbole, but … I take it from that early-morning oration that you heard something affirmative out of Istanbul and will soon take your leave of me? Of Paris? Napoleone, I … I’m thrilled for you, truly,” she told him, hoping as much to carry some measure of confidence.

“No, it isn’t anything so sorrowful as separation, though I should fear when I confess to you now that which you’ll surely learn in the course of your day - you shall condemn me to such a distance, banished across the Bosporus! Alone but for the comfort of your memory to consume my every waking thought in the way you must by now know that you have since first my eyes found you.”

“Uh … yeah. Not to stop you from poeticising what has yet come to pass by being pedantic, but check your maps, Kadıköy is on the European side, although I guess if Fenerbahçe had an away match your synopsis would serve more than simple alliteration,” she considered, “but Napoleone, let us be serious: I’m hardly condemning you, if this works out it would be an amazing opportunity and could really build your profile if you manage to keep them up in the current political climate. We’ll keep in touch, if there is time. I’m sure you’ll have other commitments.”

“I never intended upon deceiving you, my adorable friend,” he continued as though he had not considered her counter, “but the fire you caused in my heart burned to ash all that had before been. I’ve forgotten myself, were only that the world would extend us the same such courtesy in these small hours that I might be free of conscious, free to cover you with kisses more numerous than -”

It was far too early to engage with any of this.

“Were only that you would come to the point that I could but assure you that the catastrophe to which you ever-vaguely allude is but the product of a tired mind,” Rose complained. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Very little,” Napoleone admitted. “Rose. There is something I have to tell you. The Daily Mail – that is, the most circulated paper in all of Britain – translated and printed a sample of my writing and I don’t suspect that is a way for me to personally get out ahead of it. Hence my waiting for my bloody agent to wake and present me a series of possible options,” he cursed.

Rose wished she did not feel quite the sense of relief that filled her. He was hers and would be for the remainder of the morning at least; at least to the extent that he could escape his own mind. “I’ve read your writing,” she reminded him, letting out a small sigh as she began to critique it the way she imagined ‘Queen’ Elizabeth might, “ _little_ heavy on dramatic excesses, but otherwise engaging and pretty solid from a research perspective insofar as I’ve been able to gather from skimming the source material you lent. Why should it vex you for our neighbours to know you as a man of letters? I’d see it as a benefit to your reputation, and at the risk of sounding elemental, perhaps even your purse. I’m sure Saliceti is busy securing you an advance from some publisher and will ring you at a Christian hour with something in the range of a sixty-thousand-Euro advance, give or take for his negotiating fee.

“Napoleone,” Rose bit her lip as she debated voicing her considerations, questioning if these would cause him comfort or further class conflict between them, “I’ll not pretend to know the specifics of a situation over which I take it I’m not privy at the risk of repeating a faux-pas, and naturally I don’t intend to pry, but this could go some way to supporting your family while at once saving Corsica’s history from the indifference of obscurity. If your agent isn’t up to task, if you don’t have an offer on your desk by midday tomorrow, I insist that you inform me immediately and allow me to intervene – I had been working on a concept of making something like this happen for you, a little side hustle, but this far exceeds -”

“It isn’t my History of Corsica that caught Effie Gwillim’s fancy,” he snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as his face fell further into a frown. “The thing is, I wrote a something of a novella and that is what has been put to print, at least in part. I fear that my words will serve to injure some, not the least of whom your own lovely, unique self, and that, far beyond any ambition of reputation you cite me as processing is the cause of my anguish.”

“To hold a pen is to be at war,” Rose attempted to jest in a tone that matched the melancholy with which she was met. “I was not aware that your literary talents extended themselves to fiction.”

“How wise you prove yourself,” Napoleone offered with a sad smile.

“Its … Voltaire,” Rose said slowly, questioningly, having suspected her lover to rise to the discussion of better literature as he often did in attempt to disguise his lack of confidence. Did she have something to worry about, too, she wondered, trying not to sound worried when she moved to address the matter at hand. “Um … so what is it about, this novella? Politics? Paris and her palace intrigue?” she asked, casually as she could muster herself to with imaginings of a modern Parisian _Vanity Fair_ or _Bonfire_ thereof flooding her loose imaginings.

“Nothing quite so fanciful,” Napoleone assured her. “It is a personal reflection of a romantic relationship disguised by setting to an admittedly limited extent, though drawing heavily on the Zeitgeist of the Revolution and following the usual patterns of Romanticism.”

Theresa had certainly been accurate in her assessment that men were incapable of discussing the written word without sounding like fools and fops, Rose considered. “Wait,” she pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to smile at her young lover’s ego and urgency, “you wrote a historical romance?”

“No,” Napoleone seemed to insist. “I wrote a _romantic_ novel in every sense: its hero Clisson abandons his successful military career for Eugénie, the other titular figure, with whom he leads a happy life until the outbreak of war calls upon his higher morals and he returns to the front to serve his country. Injured in battle, he sends a subordinate to reassure his wife, but she becomes rather seduced by this man and ceases to return Clisson’s correspondence. Ultimately, Clisson, heartbroken by the perceived loss of all he has held most dear organises his own death by leading his men in a heroic charge.”

“So … to rephrase my original inquiry in exactly the same words: you wrote a historical romance?”

“It is something of an homage to Goethe’s Werther and Rousseau’s Héloïse.”

“Which is to say that with the benefit of a male perspective a, forgive me, _historical romance_ gets elevated to the status of a _curriculum requirement_?”

“I’m electing to abstain from answering, fearing nothing I could offer would serve my defence.”

“Probably wise,” Rose smiled as she reached for his phone, ticking him as he tried to deny her. “Well, let’s see it then,” she laughingly encouraged.

“No, you wouldn’t like -” Napoleone began to object.

“You do realise I have my own mobile,” she said as she untangled herself from the embrace and reached to her nightstand, “I’m perfectly capable of googling the article, and that my doing so would only tip off an algorithm that much sooner, so rather than,” she held up her device to demonstrate, “auto-suggestions such as … Napoleone Buonaparte … okay,” she frowned slightly,” this all has to do with your historical namesake -”

“I was named after my maternal uncle, actually,” he tried to defend.

“Your mum knows what she did,” Rose quipped, “Oh here – instead of ‘Napoleone Bonaparte PSG’ being … seventh on the list, ‘historical romance novel’ would take its place and - oh! there we are,” she grinned as she found the piece at the very top of Mail Online: ‘ _Their eyes met, their hearts fused_ ,” she read dramatically before premonition rather that Napoleone’s pained expression caused her to abruptly cease with her spot of fun. “Wait this isn’t about me, is it?”

“Clearly not,” Napoleone glared, then grinned, “whenever you look at me you seem as though you’ve just come on something incredibly witty but far too cruel to leave your lips, always fighting the urge to smile at a joke you don’t trust yourself to say.” In truth, Rose had never been confident about her teeth and even after veneers had fixed what basic orthodontics could not, her facial reactions remained fixed. But unlike her boyfriend, she was not one to so easily lay bare her soul, and when Napoleone looked at her as he did she could almost believe that she was indeed beautiful, a shared illusion she would be loath to shatter too soon, especially when he offered through virtue of his summary a vague hint that he had another –

Not that it surprised her. This was, after all, bonne Paris.

“It isn’t that I can assure you,” she offered of her lips’ reluctance to fully part.

“I don’t mind, to be the cause of your clear amusement is worth more than I ever dared hope for myself. Watching you shy towards happiness - you, for whom I believe happiness was itself made - is quite nearly as enthralling as seeing your lips at last part into a smile proves itself intoxicating.”

“Okay … maybe it is _that_ , just a little bit,” she could not help but to laugh at his peculiar style of phrase which seemed to confess that he had enjoyed few conversations aside from his internal dialogues with writers long deceased. “Napoleone, the way you speak at times, I quite feared you would weep during or directly after sex … which, granted, you _did_ last night but for fully excusable reasons in no way relating to your _fevered soul in its fits of passion as you unburdened yourself into me_ -” she mimicked his dialect in a paraphrase of usual themes, over empathising each ‘u’ and confusing graphemes for phonemes at random.

“And here I was beginning to think you never took it upon yourself to read my texts,” he murmured, again giving her a hard look that hinted towards humour.

“We did not afford the mechanics of the act quite as much forethought as we might have. I cried a little, too, to be perfectly fair to you. The rug was probably a mistake in hindsight,” she admitted.

“You came to me as Cleopatra did to Caesar, I’m never going to look back on last night with regret.”

“Is the aloe helping?” she asked of his shins, feeling her back burning still from the friction sustained, feeling the question came out rather mum-ish, a consideration that was quickly accompanied by the further concern that this was the first time Napoleone was seeing her without cosmetics, that he had taken note of her fine lines and formed an opinion she had just enforced.

At least, she mused to herself, it was honest.

“Quite,” he answered. “I did not know that the plant’s benefits lent themselves to such ailments. I knew it was good against the sun, but -”

“Oh it sooths any kind of inflammation, including acne, eczema – and also stuff like stretch marks and scars. I’m sorry, I sound so …”

“So … much like you want to change the topic?” Napoleone tried. “Rose, I know how I sound, I know you consider me ridiculous, but I do, truly need to confess something to you, my love, much though it pains -”

“You know, last night,” Rose offered, “that wasn’t the first time I wept with love for you.”

Love.

It was the first time she said the word aloud to him, at least in such direct context. Everything suddenly felt all too real. His eyes widened slightly, and Rose wondered if he had heard a certain desperation in her choice vocabulary. If he had another, would her tears compel him to break his ties? Was it not what she wanted for Napoleone to run off without word or warning with someone more appropriately suited? Had Paul Barras - of all unlikely individuals – been correct in his assessment that she wanted more form him than a flow of information and a few fleeting glances? From this small, scrawny, almost sickly young man with an archaic vocabulary and not much speaking in his favour beyond his unfortunate name and a loose association with a number of the state’s enemies she sought to unseat?

It was all an accident, she thought, until of course it inevitably was not.

She was in love with him.

She had been for some time.

“You mock me, as you must,” Napoleone said as he leaned in to kiss her. She pushed him back as she made her appeal.

“That afternoon when you were using my workbench to lay out your maps and spreadsheets and Eugène approached you to ask if you would help him with his maths,” she told him, “before I could even turn to caution him not to interrupt you when you were busy, you stopped everything to explain on his level concepts which, let’s be honest, I know I would have had to read though three times and work out with a pencil before confusing him more with my attempts at explanation, and I simply … I felt shook by the realisation of all that had failed all of our lives, all that you so perfectly fill, and I went into the greenhouse and let my eyes run with joy and grief and guilt at my own selfishness in letting you at my side when you could do so much better for yourself than a single mother several years your senior. If you mean to say you are doing better … for yourself, than what I can offer you with this,” she paused, glancing again to her phone which was now a mess of popups -EU-mandated privacy policy explanations, disclaimers about cookie usage (made redundant by the book she had looked at on Amazon a few days prior that now followed her around the internet like a bitter ex), and the bright pink reminder that she could also view the story in the DM App (which she was ashamed to have downloaded for the express purpose of looking at Anna Hewlett’s alleged baby-bump, a pastime that seemed inappropriate giving that advent of feminism and the coming of war.) Rose locked her screen once more. “With this,” she continued awkwardly, “forgive me but almost insultingly misogynistic, attention-seeking narrative, I’ll not lie and say I’m not without my envies, but these I’ve always held.

“Napoleone, let’s be real here, we both knew far before anything began that this could never last. Go to her, whomever she is – find your happiness. I bear you no grudge, you have been such an unexpected source of my joy,” she choked. “I dare hope we might yet remain friends.”

“Nothing would prove a greater misery,” Napoleone gaped, straightening his posture with a jolt. “Friends? Rose, I have every intent of offering you my name the moment it is mine to give.”

“Yours to give? You … you are married?”

It was too much.

She ought to have never opened the topic, even to end it.

Rose shifted back to her side of the bed, intent of rising in search of a dressing-gown that she hoped would return to her some sense of her dignity. She was a whore in both essence and actuality and she would not deny as much, but her stomach turned with bitter recollections of Alexandre’s philandering when she had been pregnant with Hortense, with the impossibilities imposed on her by the affair: the shame she suffered that her children would never know financial hardship, that her parents business could continue to prosper in spite of regulations imposed by a US-Embargo, that the men and women who worked the lands she owned and those she one day would remained in employment, that her late sister’s daughter was provided for and her unfortunate condition attended – and the thought of this woman carelessly negating so many necessities in sleeping with a married man - it was too much to endure.

Rose would not knowing condemn another to what had once seemed her own unhappy fate.

“Engaged,” Napoleone corrected as though a distinction could be drawn. He reached for her hand. Rose tried to pull back but Napoleone would not release her. “That is … I was, _clandestinely_ , to a girl I’ve not seen since making a proposal born out of a shared sense of loneliness that defines every adolescent, that we all name as love out of inexperience and an inability to be decerning enough to distinguish between self and status.

“You would chase me from your bed with the advice of ‘enjoying my youth’ but I never enjoyed anything in this world quite so much as the quite moments I have with you, the little idiosyncrasies that serve to remind that life is more than just a narrative arch – the way you struggle against your urges to smile for such might risk confessing whatever is truly on your mind; how you wrinkle up your cute little nose in protest when I offer you honeyed words in Italian, having grown accustom to my otherwise using that language exclusively for counting and cursing, jealous of whatever you imagine as robbing you from the full of my concentration as though there were anything in this world that could accomplish such a feat!; the way you always move to smooth your children’s hair when speaking with them, the mischief that I watch reflect between your shared glances, this sense you all seem to share that nothing is mundane in itself, that life is an adventure worth having – and damnit all to hell, Rose! I would be damned myself if I did not seek to accompany you on every step. My life began when we met, before … I simply existed - with purpose fine, but certainly without cause.

“I should have told you about Désirée long before I ever began to count all of the things you do inadvertently to cause me to such intoxication – you, who have always found cause to be up front with me on every matter despite the fears I know you to hold, however without warrant, of such being to your detriment – but how dare I attempt to convince you now that my intentions towards you are worthy of your merit? Things have been ended between she and I for a time; as I have stated it has been years since we’ve seen one another and an age unto itself since our last exchange, but I couldn’t break things off for good over any distance, for reasons of semantics as much as any sense of chivalry; you see, her sister Julie and my brother Giuseppe are themselves a pair and as such, she will be part of my life for as long as their happiness should last – indefinitely, or so I should hope. Of course, I meant for things to end amicably between us, but with the Mail’s publication of this assault on her moral character, I … I fear she will interpret this as an attempt to humiliate her without cause and, well things are complicated as they stand.

“Rose,” he swallowed, loosening his grip on her hand and pulling it into a chaste kiss before fully releasing it, “ I’m going to propose to you as soon as I return to Paris after Christmas, as soon as I end this officially, you needn’t say ‘yes’ to me, to my person – how could I ever expect that you would? – but giving you my mother’s ring would at the very least protect you from further suspicion -”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Rose cautioned. “Don’t conflate your desires for me with the crimes we both commit. You don’t need to give me a ring, you … you need to give Robespierre something to distract him from his day to day business of fear mongering that is modern politics. Something … I may well just have for you. Police Scotland are re-examining the death of the Duke of Richmond. That is sure to keep my name out of it for a time without necessitating yours.”

“I don’t … Rose, I don’t see us as being a marriage of politics or convenience – in fact in the sense of the latter, it is really anything but,” he tried to smile, shifting as he noted she did not share his sentiment, “I love you. I have from the moment we met, and perhaps I am too forward but I want to make my intentions clear. I’m yours, I’m in this -”

“Just … pass on the message, Naps,” Rose shook he head, pulling her bedsheet around her shoulders and wearing it as a cloak until she retired her silk slip and dressing gown from where they hung in the adjacent master-bathroom.

She did not know what to believe, if she could believe anything from a man who so easily forgot the promises which he made to another.

She knew, however, that she did not want him to see any part of her that should never have been on offer, that he should have never had the inclination to indulge in despite any advance she made in ignorance. That the man would admit to having a woman waiting for him at home and propose marriage to her in one in the same breath! The audacity! The entitlement!

Rose examined her reflection in the long bathroom mirror, wondering what exactly it was of her that Napoleone so longed to possess. There was nothing singular about her physique particularly worthy of remark, aside, perhaps, from her slightly above average height, which hardly seemed something the young man would covert. She was lean though hardly as thin as she had been in her modelling days, and her breasts though rather insignificant in their size confessed to having fed two children. Though she woke no pronounced wrinkles, without make up and moisturizer it was plain to see that she had witnessed quite a lot of the world, that so much of what had once seemed intriguing failed to excite. Her once waist-long hair which had been shaved off in prison was still a tad too short for her personal liking much as it had made her an internet icon of sorts – and yet he looked at her as though she were something exquisite unto herself.

Rose had played with the idea that the courtship had been encouraged by Robespierre out of some want to force her to incriminate herself or her friends before the law, but Napoleone had been too genuine –

That, or he had played her for a fool.

Or, she thought, as though such were a consideration that stood a chance of contradiction!

“He already knows about the case,” Napoleone answered, following her in his hastily thrown on shorts and a jersey he had thrown on too quickly to yet realise he wore it inside out. “Darling, please don’t -”

“Sure,” Rose sighed, annoyed at Napoleone’s presence, his appearance, and all that persisted around them to find them specifically here, “of course Fouché wouldn’t be at all coy about this, and anyway, you and Luciano finagled him into acting as George Hanger’s solicitor during that informal interview he was forced to give which I’m sure served _everyone_ save our dear police director, but there is a huge difference, my friend, between suspicion and success and … as it happens,” she said with a small snort, indignant over Fouché’s evident refusal to let her reap and of the spoils of a battle she had helped him win, indignant over Napoleone’s general indecency and wanting to prove that she could get one over as well, she boasted, “I know _exactly_ how the man was poisoned and why it was never tested for aside for the obvious reasons of police corruption that permeate the whole of this complicated cover up.”

“Did you see the initial report?” Napoleone blinked.

“Few days back. Lemme back up. So, as you can imagine, finding himself thwarted by Robespierre at the interview – thanks to you and your little brother- Fouché was furious, more so than I have ever seen him, even more so than that when he got back to his desk only to find a missed call from the Mayor of Liverpool asking for the transcripts of a deposition he oversaw with regard to an insider trading scheme Edmund Hewlett – that is, Richmond’s heir apparent – and his mate John Graves Simcoe – the offshore drilling guy,” she clarified for point of reference, “were accused of being involved in, possibly at the urging of our embassy in Washington, possibly the Brits attempts at getting the same trade deal on favourable terms in attempt to influence the referendum, for whatever that was worth -”

Napoleone shook his head. “No one votes on trade.”

“We are not talking in terms of state theory or political philosophy,” Rose tried to adjust before she could invite debate, “at least according to the information you yourself were provided by ‘the incorruptible’, a DGSE Agent called Lafayette - who was at the time of Senator Arnold’s abduction on an exchange with the FBI’s Manhattan Field Office, who was _also_ under FBI suspicion in the abduction, mind -”

“Mostly because France received all of the benefits Fouché was after under these supposedly manufactured conditions that influenced the terms of the agreement,” Napoleone interrupted.

“And then once more - low and behold – when President Trump reneged on the deal in favour of terms that from my evening-news-watching perspective seem have only come as a detriment to the German automobile industry. Not to infer all too much into an absence, but hasn’t Lafayette been in Munich ever since?”

“As far as I have been told, sure. Where are you going with this?”

“A weakened Berlin is always to Paris’ partial benefit, and no one in politics has any cause to question the exact ordinance of involvement as such, for if not directly implemented by whatever might or mightn’t come out, everyone has inarguably benefited from whatever hand was played way back. But the situation is now less stable and recent attempts to reassert our dominance are raising red flags. All the same, Barras ordered Fouché to comply with the other mayor’s request without delay, which is how I came into the knowledge of all of this, namely having been with him at the time -”

“Doing what precisely?” Napoleone asked with a hint towards accusation.

Rose sighed. “Look, this – you don’t get to be jealous about this. Paul and I friends with benefits – sexual, political, financial, it is what it is. You know what it is. I’m not proud but I _refuse_ to be made ashamed. Not by _you_. Anyway,” she shook her head, “we were merely discussing other business dealings out of Liverpool from that same afternoon and what the ends ultimately confessed of the means, but all this in time. Supposing, as per what you were able to relay to me of your conversation with Hanger, that he knows exactly what happened, supposing that he is protecting someone and supposing this someone doesn’t share the Hewlett surname, I asked Fouché to try and get the files from Police Scotland pertaining to the original case – see if, maybe, all of this – the market manipulation, the murder, the Senator’s abduction, shared anything beyond a set of suspects.

“He had it, so he let me see it that I ‘not make more of a fuss’ as he put it, though I’ll have it noted he was well in the process of throwing his own,” she could not help but to note, “and anyway … then I saw something the autopsy was sure to miss.

“Okay,” she winked, “this is where it gets fun: do you know what the deadliest native plant is in the British Isles?”

“I’ll admit my ignorance.”

“Rhubarb, specifically its root, which if ingested directly would kill once instantly in effects mimicking a stroke, and if taken diluted over time would have much the same effect, which is what I suspect happened in this instance being as no one else at the party took ill whatsoever. Now, as far as natural poisons go, this is of course detectable and therefore as a means of murder ill-advised, but for the fact that even if it came up in the autopsy in this specific case, it would not have aroused suspicion even if screened, being that the guests were all treated to rhubarb tarts as dessert – it was spring, it was in season.”

“How do you know this?” Napoleone frowned.

“I’m a horticulturalist,” Rose smiled.

“You are a florist,” Napoleone answered her flatly. Wow, Rose thought, debating if it would be worth reminding him that rather than the ‘Emperor’ she suspected him of liking to play at, he was an assistant coach of a second-tier club side who for all their oil money could not even manage to be first in the third division. Nope, she decided, gleaning from his expression that he did not consider his tone and its implications could prove hurtful. It was more important to keep him onside as much as she might than it was to make this entirely about avenging her own sense of personal dignity.

“Hey … hey, a florist _and_ a socialite! Excuse you,” she responded playfully, “And back in 2016, the mum of a four-year-old girl who begged for weeks on end to stay up late to watch the Royal Wedding. So, we made a night of it, pyjamas and tiaras and tiny pastries of the sort Tattler cited the Hewletts as serving at their own celebration. Anyway, I checked my suspicion against the report, validated it, shared as much with Barras and Fouché and voilà! Case is reopened.”

“That is certainly impressive,” Napoleone nodded.

“Now,” Rose continued, ignoring the compliment, “being a mere hobbyist as you seem all too keen to point out, I learned all about this in Jean-André Deluc’s book of botanical descriptions – the version I have on my coffee table includes sketches credited to Mary Anne Burges, she is an Edinburgh based lawyer … and reportedly the writer of several works of romantic literature I realise we should dismiss as being ‘bodice rippers’ given her own anatomy, for of course I would _never_ put her fiction in the same rank as Clisson -”

“You have made your point.”

“Have I?” Rose frowned, tapping her index finger against her cheek, and casting her gaze upward. “Where can I read your prose in French?”

“Rose -”

“Oh please, do tell me.”

“Wattpad, AO3,” Napoleone began to list.

“Okay. So public access. Easily found for anyone bored enough to look. Not as easily found as the work of Miss Burges, but then … I am sure it is no accident that you can find her gothic epics at the grocery checkout next to the TV guides and tabloids, she is, after all, Effie Gwillim’s best friend.”

“So, you are suggesting this is the work of a cabal?” Napoleone asked, electing to ignore the slight.

“I’m saying there is a money trail and Gwillim benefited the most from Edmund Senior’s sudden, supposed death,” Rose answered, continuing in the same earnest, “That is probably the first path Fouché will follow, and seeing your name on the front page of Mail Online is going to make it a lot easier for us to gain access – in that respect maybe I would do well to marry you,” she murmured meanly.

“But what do _you_ gain from this, Rose?” Napoleone interrupted, pleading. “I can’t help if you won’t let me understand -”

Was it not obvious? “I don’t trust the legal system to function,” she answered plainly. “My husband was executed without the benefit of giving due process so much as a nod. I was arrested without a warrant, beaten in my own home in front of my young children all because I run a successful business that continued to profit despite trade restricts that only exist because of my government’s fear that their hand in the profiteering that resulted from Senator Arnold’s disappearance should by any means be exposed. At the expense of my honour, I’ve been forced into the arms of men who might yet be influenced into taking a stand against the most horrid atrocities of excess and corruption, and unjust as it is I know that my successes, limited though they have been, are only possible because I am myself a product of the same excess and corruption to which we are all damned. I don’t have anything to _gain_ from this, Napoleone, but if I don’t try to influence the outcome, women of lesser means than myself could lose far more.”

“But you are going about this entirely the wrong way,” he argued. “To support either of the current factions over the other is pure folly, my adorable friend, the methodology that continues to call all of this into question and contention is ineffectual -”

“That is insignificant. A handful of people with influence on the national budget want to see André’s research employed here as it is claimed to be in the States, the effect then being that the fund will be sorted out accordingly in accommodation, usually siphoned away from education, health and human services, things that if allowed to lapse will seem correlative rather than causal if allowed enough media which you and your brothers invite. It doesn’t have to work; it just has to seem to in order to meet certain ends which you have to accept have nothing to do with national security or public safety.”

“Not if I can convince them otherwise,” Napoleone insisted.

“Don’t be so naïve,” Rose cautioned. “When have men of power ever been given over to reason?”

“When the cost can be proved to outweigh the benefit. Rose, look at me. Really, just … just look at me.”

“I already have enough regrets over the night we shared,” she said has he removed his hastily thrown on shirt to reveal his painfully thin frame.

“I’m not twenty years old and my body has been ruined by the industry I’ve been a tool of for more than half my life,” he told her with audible embarrassment, “a life that has surely been cut in half by the practices employed at every club and academy. I’ve been fed so much aspirin and ibuprofen and God knows what else to keep me on the pitch – the demands of the modern game having become too strenuous for the human body to otherwise sustain – that I can’t keep food down full stop. I avoid so many social situations in which I would love to take part because I’m worried about coughing up blood in a public WC.”

“Jesus – has that happened?” So much of his eccentrics made sudden sense in this horrible context. Rose felt her heart break for the boy in spite of her will to close it to him entirely.

“It is pretty common.”

“Napoleone, you really need to consult a physician -”

“I don’t believe in medicine, Rose. How could I? No one talks about it because we all sign waivers, or at least our parents do – but everyone who plays at any professional level, we are, all of us, in excruciating pain all of the time, and it is not something that ceases when one’s career ends. And its not … I wear sweatpants not because I’m not concerned with impressing you, I am, believe me, and I wish I could do a better job of it but I have to carry a toothbrush, mouthwash and over the counter anti-acid reflex wherever I go because I wake up in the morning with the necessary expectation that I am going to be ill. You think my unsophisticated in my palate, or unwilling to know your culture because I can’t digest fish and Caribbean spices find me in a pain I fear I can’t conceal, that I feel equally you interpret as disgust and I feel awful. With Raza it is the opposite, I’m generally alright with couscous and chickpeas and plain rice and he treats my grocery list as though I’m attempting to patronise him, and it does no good to explain otherwise. I can’t complain, really, I _can’t_ , not to someone else who grew up in sport and knows its pitfalls. A lot of kids leave academies crippled, or with heart conditions, or in body bags and most certainly without contracts – I played in the second league. I left on grounds of ill health which I could not legally prove based on a stipulation in my contract and I -”

“Did your mother know about this? Does she know that one of her children is starving – literally starving – whilst she grows fat on your labours?”

“Don’t, its fine, I’m in no position to complain and I don’t mean to -”

“You should!” Rose insisted, her chest and cheeks reddening with the rage she felt whenever she was confronted with anything that allowed her to consider the extent to which Napoleone martyred himself for his thankless family. “How could she send you to the mainland knowing that there was even a possibility of harm befalling your person? How could you -”

“How _dare_ you. You, especially! Did you not do the same when your family was suffering, did you not insist as I did that you could fix -”

“You were nine, you had no concept of consequence,” Rose dismissed.

“And you did at what, fourteen?”

“That was different,” Rose snapped. “My sister was dying.”

“Did you save her?”

“Fuck you.”

“Rose, Rose, please, that is not what I meant. People make mistakes, even parents make mistakes. I don’t need your pity or appreciate your condemnation.”

“I’m hardly -”

“I’m merely illustrating my point that with such a high casualty rate, do you really think the most corrupt industry in the world, and industry that considers itself above international guidelines and regulations would not be employing these same methods André proposed if they were at all proven to work? Even if only just as well as the current doping system already in place? If nothing else, it would cut costs and football is a business like any other. And there _were_ attempts, my love, and I wanted so badly for them to bear fruit, but I suppose it is better that nothing came of it, what with the restrictions on liberty the same could impose if implemented into public policy. Whatever else you may think of me, help me fight this back before it gets into the wrong hands. You think the system is unjust now – imagine what it might become if we let our divisions deter us from valour.”

Rose nodded, closed her eyes, and did her best to unclutter her thoughts.

“My sweetest friend, please, please say something. I recognise that I – in so many ways – present to you a man who is callous and unfeeling, but I’m resolved to stay in Paris as long as you remain, and I believe you should. I believe in you, and one day when my saga has been written it should speak of nothing save the affection and admiration which I bear for you and you alone -”

“I … I can understand how you would be mistrusting of medicine, but if you are open to it, I could make you and herbal tea that could ease with digestion,” she interrupted, joining Napoleone in an uneasy laughter.

“You know how to do things like that?” he smiled.

“And how to poison Dukes with desserts in a way that tricks a toxicology report, I’ll remind you.”

“I’m sorry I called you a florist.”

“I’m sorry for … literally every thought that ever crossed my mind with respect to your stature and appearance.”

“I … don’t quite know how to take that,” he said, turning to face the mirror with some admission of defeat before shifting his attention to the reflection she cast.

“I don’t … quite know what you mean for me to do with respect to gathering evidence to your claim or making its case to the relevant parties,” Rose confessed. “I know that if Robespierre gets hold of this, however, he will run with it as far as he can independent of fact.”

“As would your own allies if it kept them in power and lined their pockets. But you and I wouldn’t.”

“What are you going to make a run for public office?” Rose smirked.

“No, I’m going to ask a nerd in PSG’s GA Division who I know to play a little Sunday side to look at a few spreadsheets from Setauket and help me work out the logistics. I’m … I’m not exactly what one would consider ‘electable’. What is it that the Daily Mail called me? The Corsican Ogre?”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “I’d say you are more of a little goblin, but okay if that is what they want to go with.”

“And you are a fairy princess.”

“Sod off,” she shoved him gently. He pulled her close.

“Really, Rose. Here me out. You are beautiful beyond measure and at once personal, approachable. You have an uncommonly good heart and strong will and everyone you meet is instantaneously taken with these qualities. You are witty and quick and well-read and you can read absolutely anyone. You are more than worth the merits bestowed upon you and the people who you count among your admirers are those who could sign their names to your candidacy -”

“I’m electable,” she surmised.

“Yes,” he nodded.

Wow. “Napoleone,” Rose shook her head, “Whatever you are envisioning, I really have no aspirations towards holding public office.”

“You do,” he insisted, “you just don’t know it yet. Rose, listen, I tried this already with Giuseppe and Luciano on Corsica, and maybe it is better to have failed there because as a result I met you and, my love, together we could influence policy on a much larger scale -”

Suddenly it all made sense. “Is that why you are with me? Is that the attraction to an older woman in general? Because you think I can get five-hundred bloody signatures?”

“No,” Napoleone insisted, retracting, “Yes but, no, you misunderstand me. I love you; I love you with all on my heart and with every breath, but people like us, we are compelled to act. Don’t allow perceived personal injury to dissuade you from actualising all that you’ve bled for.”

“When we first met, I thought you a danger to yourself. Now I see you are instead a danger to us all.” It was so often all an accident until it was not that she had hardly considered he had an agenda all along.

“Is that your way of saying ‘yes’?” he asked with a hint at seduction.

It was her way of saying she had not yet come up with a clever way to negate whatever ambitions he held.

“I thought you meant to wait until after Christmas to propose,” Rose teased.

“I swear,” Napoleone beamed, “I swear I will give you greater cause for happiness than you have ever before known if you provide me the chance.”

“Coffee before hyperbole, kid,” Rose winked. How was she ever going to get herself out of this one?

**OOO**

John Anderson hated the night shift, rather, he hated the tricks light played when the world was otherwise dark. The florescent buzz in his shared office was ever more audible without the voices of his fellow charlatans consulting the stars (in the case of most, without a working grasp of the Greek language which he personally considered fundament in addressing them); the motion sensor in the hallway was always a few seconds slow to turn, disorienting as the blue blubs in the gents’ and the fact that the same were used to illuminate the vending machine as though its makers were legitimately concerned that upon fighting with one arm for a bag of crisps that had failed to fall, a customer might otherwise find a vain and elect to end their life struggle then and there -

This had probably happened somewhere in middle America, Anderson considered, possibly within the confines of this same office park that seemed Hell’s embassy on Earth.

There was always precedent.

There were always lawsuits.

And there never seemed to be any flavour of crisps aside from “Potato” which to add insult to (avoided) injury tasted instead like old cooking oil and cost two dollars for the continued disappointment.

The single good thing about the nightshift was that there were no supervisors on hand to tell him that he could not eat at his desk, there was no one in this office made for thirty-five, in fact, except for Dolores, who exclusively worked the Spanish-queue (which in her case meant chattering with Maria in housekeeping for a few hours before searching for coupons on the internet); Muhammed, who must have been six seasons deep into whatever he was streaming on Netflix by this point; Karen, who went by “Starlight” and came with the further detriment of legitimately believing in the paranormal; and he himself, John Anderson, the outlaw who spent his nights skimming the news, hoping to hide from the ghosts of his past by keeping them in plain sight.

He had requested a temporary shift to the small hours when it was announced that Defence Secretary Arnold would be spending this Thanksgiving holiday at an NRA rally hosted at the local high school auditorium (a venue that a few costal elites had taken issue with when the news broke, that Anderson might have himself once found deeply problematic had he not in a futile search for culture last spring spent a full third of his twelve dollar net hourly income on a ticket to see a subpar production of Godspell, thus finding that the stage itself would benefit from the lift of dramatic rhetoric that non-college educated white men seemed to monopolise in this post code.) On Fox News, Arnold was to be seen in the standard uniform of an unending campaign cycle – blue suit, American flag pin, hunting jacket and Keep America Great Cap, though there were no other photographs or coverage from the event that no one in town seemed conscious was happening.

Perhaps, Anderson thought as he looked at his fellow misfits, he simply kept the wrong company.

Perhaps Arnold’s office had simply made up the event as an excuse to grant the Secretary some much needed holiday after a recent nuclear arms race (which the Pentagon had needed to call on a former basketball player to resolve), the recent midterm elections (in which his party had strengthened its majority by two seats), the recent elevation of his right-honourable British counterpart to Earl (despite being the subject of an ongoing investigation into the alleged sexual mishandling of his teenage ward), the recent suicide of a Scottish duke that opened all of Europe to a potential war of succession (a reality America was happy to deny on the grounds that none of these countries contributed enough to their NATO defence obligations, therein - or so Arnold privately fretted to the stars and Anderson as their speaker - weakening one of the organizations that presently ensured a lasting peace), or the more personal matter for the Secretary, the fact that his son intended to announce his engagement to the daughter of the woman who had rescued him from captivity, a woman who was currently being investigated for charges of terrorism – the same that had cost her her tongue as a young woman in eastern Anatolia where the Kurdish language had been forbidden.

It could have been any of these things that had caused the Secretary to want to shoot something in this backwater under the guise of defending the Second Amendment, but Anderson had reason to fear that it was he who was being hunted rather than whatever game was otherwise in season.

He had been in daily contact with the Defence Secretary for months; regardless of where in the world the man found himself – he had always made it a matter of office policy to ring at 11 AM Eastern (10 AM here) for a reading, which in short order had become of the papers rather than the planets.

More than once, Arnold had remarked that his voice ‘ _sounded familiar’_ to which André had laughingly responded that the Secretary should not be so quick to confess as much, he may come across as having watched too many Hugh Grant films to be considered a proper red-blooded American by his proper red-blooded American peers.

Occasionally, he commented that it was as though he _‘knew him from somewhere’_ , to which Anderson answered, _‘you ring every day, I would be surprised if you didn’t’_.

But for a solid week predating the request for transfer, Arnold had not rung at all.

Instead, he had publicly announced that he would be visiting this very town for an event that by no other account was taking place.

And John Anderson thus became increasingly insecure in matters of his own safety.

Nearly three years prior, he had been working with the then-senator to develop a tool to increase military efficiency. When the budget had been cut and his research along with it, Anderson had begun catfishing the then-senator, posing as a the childhood friend of the receptionist of his private practice on a text chat in order to discover anything of the Arnold’s innermost that could be manipulated for his ends. The venture had proven itself profitable (at least professionally speaking), that was, until the day that Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen had been in town for the same event. Anderson knew he had to confess his hand before the two were caught off guard by the awkward realisation that their flirtation both existed and did not. He had arranged to meet Arnold at a bar he knew but had been kept from a timely arrival by his own sexual desires, and within a few hours of their secret meeting not taking place it had been announced that the senator had gone missing, a status that had been used by multiple powers to manipulate stock prices in a manner that created favourable terms for a trade agreement between the US and EU to finally be signed not policy.

Anderson had been happier not knowing what the senator had endured during his captivity. Over the course of their daily chats, however, he had learned that Arnold had somehow, drugged and delirious, come to deduce that he had never been speaking with Peggy Shippen at all, but rather, with the ‘ _effeminate psychologist_ ’ (as he referred to him) whom he had ‘ _met once at a reception_.’

He had also concluded that he had been in love with this man, this John André whom Anderson had once been.

Sometimes, he spoke of how he still open the messages on his old burner for the memory of how it felt to have someone in his life who had attempted to truly understand him, even if the premise of the interaction had been based in lie.

Sometimes, Anderson envied Arnold the experience.

Sometimes, he worried that the man understood him far better than he let on.

Robert Rogers, André oldest and only friend in the colonies, had been charged with the abduction and offered a reduced sentence should he help the police determine his location. Having accomplished the latter easily and on his own accord, the two had discussed between a thin motel room wall their shared predicament. The was no real out. Rogers had wanted to be locked away in a high security prison for the same reason André had fled Witness Protection - namely, it was not only the Americans who had want to see them both brought to justice. The French in particular, it seemed, had a very clear vision of what from that might take, and neither he nor Rogers had designs on subjecting the other to such a fate, regardless of the blame and malice that existed between them.

Robert Rogers was in prison for his murder and would be for the next one-hundred-seventy-five-years, for the American legal system was built on excess.

André was dead and Anderson had spent every day since looking over his shoulder and down into his own grave.

Convinced that Arnold knew his relative location, he lately kept to the cover of night. Whatever the Secretary’s intentions with him might be, the world had come to its own conclusions. He could not return. He had no reason to try.

Work was scarce in the wee hours, which came as a comfort. Anderson could read the news and remind himself that the lives he once shared in continued independently of his own.

That he was not necessary.

That no one, in fact, was even looking. That he was being paranoid, for certainly, he was not missed or mourned.

According to Mail Online, Anna Hewlett had at long last announced her second pregnancy. His own wife, or widow rather, Philomena Cheer would be portraying the British artist Mary Robinson in an upcoming musical biopic –

And an assistant coach who had made French football culturally relevant and commercially viable by account of sharing a name with a long-dead military dictator had written a historical romance which Effie Gwillim had personally taken it upon herself to translate and mockingly analyse. Anderson was in the middle of reading the footnotes to page two in the nasally voice of the acclaimed editor’s predecessor who had long since moved to Vogue (a voice which he knew perhaps too well from an app he had reluctantly downloaded and reviewed with two stars and the summary _‘Like a Siri that insults your outfit’_ ) to his own personal amusement when his monitor turned blue with the credit card information of an incoming call:

_Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham, 14.01.2000, a card issued by Bank of Ireland but with a registered address in Liverpool, England._

This was disappointing. He had been in the middle of Napoleone’s stretched metaphor relating the mathematics of music to unrealised love and had rather wanted to see if he ever drew it to a close.

But he had to pay the bills somehow. He doubted there would be much money in selling his own self-inserting French Revolution fanfiction to a tabloid. Alas, no one even read his work on Archive of Our Own where they need not pay a cent for the pleasure. Anderson opened his sky map and skimmed the caller information one more.

It was her first time ringing the hotline though Anderson had enough experience to have felt as though he had had this conversation half a hundred times. Processing three first names and with a surname that struck a chord, he deduced that the caller was probably a God-Fearing Catholic from a Good Family who had gotten herself pregnant out of wedlock and crossed the Irish Sea to do away with it. She was probably ashamed of her choice and resistant to return home regardless of how well she had done to take care that there would not be any personal consequences. And she was a Capricorn, which meant that she had already made up her mind about whatever she was poisoning herself to ask a registered psychic to confirm. Anderson hated that such a consideration had crossed into his active mind.

“Good morning to you, Catherine,” he answered cheerfully.

>> _I thought you were meant to be a psychic_ ,<< a man replied. Anderson hated when this happened. More often, it occurred that reliant children (of any age) rang with their parents’ digits, but occasionally he found himself giving the same advice to co-dependent spouses and significant others. They had ought to pay a surcharge for these services.

“It doesn’t take one to infer that you don’t exactly believe in the Gift,” Anderson answered, “but let me do my bit to convince you: You are uncertain about your relationship with the lovely Miss Pakenham, or … you are quite certain, your wider environment has its doubts … doubts, I might venture, the stars share, based on the fact that at seven or so in the morning, I have my own that your lover is yet awake to the fact that you are spending her parent’s money at the rate of five-quid a minute, nervously pacing a bathroom you don’t know all too well, not wanting to look into the mirror for you fear seeing yourself in the same light of your mutual peers. Go, look – I guarantee you will see yourself exactly as everyone else already does, exactly as your worry Catherine will soon come to if she has not yet done so. It is difficult but admitting to your flaws is the first step in overcoming them.”

>> _The stars told you I’ve a crooked nose then?_ << the lad snorted.

“Your sarcasm suggests that it has been broken more than once,” Anderson told him. He knew the call was being recorded for quality control purposes, but he also know that if he managed to hold the line for five minutes or more, his boss would not have a care in the world for what standards were being upheld. The caller seemed to have cause for argument, and Anderson was mildly peeved that his unexpected smut was being interrupted for this purpose. He was glad to oblige to a reasonable extent.

>> _Not bad_.<< the caller gave, >> _But I suspect I can do one better. You have a degree in psychology, but something in your past that prevents you from working directly in your field. It is something in your present, however, that keeps you specifically in this line of employment – perhaps that the call centre does not run background checks? Perhaps that you do not have valid paperwork? I can tell from your accent that you are from the north, not London, as I’m sure you pretend to your casual acquaintances – for don’t we all? – but then … you don’t really have many of those, do you? Friends? Casual acquaintances? Nothing to be ashamed of, I don’t either, something of an occupational hazard for both of us._ <<

Anderson felt his heart stop. “Are you MI5? 6?”

>> _Army regular. Well … not exactly_ regular, _I’ve been given the command of garrison on the Scottish boarder, but you got the rest of it, the stuff about me and Kitty pretty much dead on. Used to get beat up at school too, but that is neither here nor there. I heard you used to be something of a lady killer though, and maybe I should pick your mind someday in that respect, Dr André, and perhaps I will, but as I’m sure the stars have already informed you, I’m facing bigger problems I rather need your expertise to sort out_.<<

“How did you get this number?” he asked. Dear God! The boy sounded nearly as frighten as he felt, which did little to ease his nerves. He knew he had to flee, but where would he go with his trail already marked? He suspected that if a teenager had found him, he was not alone in his knowledge. Was this why Arnold had ceased communication? Was this why he had come?

>> _Public access, ‘innit? Late night infomercials, that woman in a turban with her tarot cards and what looks to be cataracts she might do better to consult her GP over rather than the night sky,_ << the lad surmised of the add, >> _but I guess you meant, ‘how did I know to call it asking for you?’ That is really something of a lucky accident, if I am to be honest. You see, a few years ago, I was forced by virtue of work experience to attend a wedding I’ve been led to believe you had some hand in arranging? Edmund Hewlett and Anna Strong? Anyway, terrible business, that, I wound up spending the evening in a police station, but in such time, I managed to exchange numbers with, well -_ << he stopped abruptly, perhaps fearing that he had already revealed too much to risk naming his source. >> _It doesn’t matter. We will suffice it to say that I left the station without having to give a formal statement of my own, in the procession of several, however, that I managed to lift with her help of my American allies pertaining to research you conducted on a Sunday-league side, statements which sat in the lining of an old jacket in my elder brother’s London attic, until I recently returned from tour with reason to suspect that these same methods were being employed by the US Military._

>> _Dr André, I don’t mean to compromise your continued safety, I mean to secure it. Please, try to understand my position. I’ve been given a command in which I’ll in no doubt be asked to fire on a civilian population to keep a very fragile peace, a task I failed to perform in the past which likely has as much to do with my appointment as my brother’s seat in parliament or the fact that Sir Banastre has ever conceivable reason to personally loath me. I’ve been set up to fail, in other words. Owing to my own visible deficiencies of character and as a commander, I’ve been left defenceless against weapons of your own creation – Hewlett and Simcoe, to name them, and I now need your help if I have any hope to match their tactics. I understand if this sounds unethical, I can empathise with any fears and hesitations you may hold and suspect that many are shared between us, but the future of Great Britain is in the balance. Please, tell me how you did what you did that I might do the same._ <<

“Trust me, that is not what you want,” André whispered.

>> _What I_ want _has long been lost to me; I’m trying to save what I have left. You have my number if you change your mind_.<<

 **00:03:45** his monitor advised him when the call had been disconnected. Shit. His boss would pull it up first thing on Monday morning in a round of quality control and probably call the cops before calling him into his office.

André knew he had to leave.

He had to leave everything, and he had to leave immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter takes is title form Adam Smith’s 1759 philosophical discourse on intra- and interpersonal emotions and the effects these have on the human capacity for sympathy.
> 
> The two shows Mary could potentially be seeing (had she any intention of hanging around) are Anastasia (‘the musical about the end of the Romanov line’) and Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (‘the one loosely centred around Napoléon’s invasion a century earlier’) the latter of which of course being anachronistic (as it closed in 2017.) I could not help to drop a reference though because the show opened on such a fitting line: “There is a war going on, out there somewhere, and Andre[y] isn’t here.”
> 
> Understanding what Philomena meant with Partisan Gerrymandering requires a little bit of background into US redistricting practices so here is a quick crash course: In the United States, the redistricting of electoral district boundaries takes place every ten years or so following the census. When a particular party has a monopoly in any given state (which is to say, the governorship and both legislative bodies), it is in a strong position to draw these districts in a way that skews the outcome of the next election in their favour (the legal definition of an electoral district ‘geographically contiguous’ and ‘having roughly the same number of state voters’.) The practice of drawing electoral maps along partisan lines has in several incidences been declared unconstitutional (1995 - Miller v Johnson), though the US Supreme Court has since declared the matter to additionally be nonjudiciable (2019 - Rucho v Common) and has ordered Congress and the States to develop restrains against the practice ( which it seems often takes the form of nonpartisan redistricting committees.)
> 
> … That was kind of a lot for one line. Now might be as good of time as any to jump ahead and mention that there is a minor, unnamed self-cert in this chapter because to quote you “it is my fic and I can do what I want.” Vedo is my oldest (and I should not admit this but also favourite brother) and he really does have a few insane booking records behind him. Our family also really does own and operate a number of newsstands, which explains basically everything about my personality and scope of interests.
> 
> In that spirt, let’s ignore chronology altogether and knock all of the refenced realities of the modern world out in one quick round before this starts sounding like a year 8 essay on Napoléon’s domestic life –
> 
> A number of ex-players and medical professionals have recently spoken about aspirin usage in football, which isn’t regulated even in leagues that do regular testing as it is not classified as doping by WADA, but there have been incidences of players having suffering life-changing injury due to addiction and overdose (club physicians give a prescribed amount, since the stuff is available over the counter players go out and buy it on their own thinking more is the answer to their resistance, sometimes to fatal result.)
> 
> Denis Rodman has been making an impact on US/North Korean relations since his first trip to Pyongyang in 2013. Kim Jung Un, reportedly a big fan of the 90s Chicago Bulls for who Rodman played for 3 seasons met him personally on this first trip (which sounds like an epic unto itself – Rodman, sponsored by an online gambling platform and a crypto-currency used exclusively in the sale of cannabis, went to set up an exhibition basketball game for certain members of the authoritarian government, an experience that has turned into a bromance between himself and the Supreme Leader.) He has since broken news form North Korea, secured the release of an American prisoner, and got both Kim and his own dictatorial leader to a peace summit. Still, he does not consider himself a diplomat.
> 
> The 2018 Midterm Elections saw the Republicans increase their majority by +2 seats (from 51 to 53)
> 
> There is a debate over the extent to which Corsican is its own distinct language v it being merely an Italian dialect. I’m personally more on the side of the latter (only because I grew up with my family’s stories about how there was no unified Italian until the advent of television, and how in like the 70s they had a programme on before the evening news where they explained the new standardised grammatic) but anyway, the main differences between Corsican and Italian as we know it today is that ‘o’s are often substituted with ‘u’s and Corsican has more stressed vowels than Italian bothers itself with pronouncing. This is where Rose finds the basis for her imitation.
> 
> Ugh! Character limits. More in the comments ...


End file.
